SKATEBOARD MINISTRY Park delivers religion around the half-pipe

Most of the skaters seem receptive to the message.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Churchgoers ordinarily find tranquility under the vaulted ceilings of their churches, where sunlight casts a glow through stained glass. Among padded pews, thoughts quiet to organ music and rustling Bibles. Or not.
Try Grace Slick shrieking across a parking lot, where wooden ramps are arrayed on the blistering pavement. Try 100 guys in baggy pants performing endless daredevil tricks with names like acid drop and kickflip and ollie.
This, also, is church -- extreme church, perhaps. It is called the Solid Foundation Skate Park, a blend of God, half-pipes, and wedge ramps that has been attracting skaters to its Midland Park, N.J., locale every Saturday afternoon for three years.
If there is doubt about its godliness, visitors need only listen in on the 3 p.m. "God Spot" -- 10 minutes of evangelical Christianity delivered in a casual, teenage lingo.
"So, yeah, there's this old story," said Joshua Escobar, a youth ministries pastor from Englewood, N.J., who addressed the skaters on a recent Saturday. "There are these 10 guys, they all have a skin disease called leprosy. Now I don't know if you guys know about Jesus Christ, but he's a cool guy and he knows everybody."
The young men and a few women, mostly young teenagers, sit raptly on their skateboards.
"And I don't know if you know about healing," continued Escobar, who was dressed in an old T-shirt and faded jeans as the day's invited speaker, "but I saw a guy in Panama, in the jungle, who had cut his arm with a machete, and we prayed for him, and it was the craziest thing in the world and the coolest thing, cooler than 'Fear Factor,' because it began to heal up right before our eyes."
The Christian message may be short and casual, but in the fun, carnivallike environment of the skate park, with its concession stand and weekly fund-raising barbecue, most skaters seem open to the spiritual lift.
"I love the park," said Chris Peixoto, a 12-year-old from Ramsey, N.J., who wore black skateboard sneakers and demonstrated one of his favorite moves, his kickflip. "And I'm glad Steve Wolfe is doing this. It's a real blessing. He has so much love for everyone, and he's so gentle and nice and kind."
Chris took up skateboarding years ago, but became active when he lived in Northern California, where the skateboard culture there was "more anti-everything, more hard-core." He feels safer at the Jersey park, where he is sure he will not run into people who are "doing drugs or drinking or talking about it."
And he likes the God Spot. "They tell me more about Christ and it's fun to learn," he said.
This skateboard ministry is part of a movement to bring religion to the youth. Others like it are popping up in places such as Denver; Peoria, Ill.; Redwood City, Calif.; Davenport, Iowa; and Portland, Ore., where one of the oldest skate churches began in the mid-1980s.
The ministries are but one more sign of born-again pop culture finding its way into everything from stand-up comedy to television, rock music, movies, and books. There are even Christian skateboard manufacturers.
The scene
In Midland Park, 60 ramps, stairs, rails, and wedges are spread over a football-field sized parking lot. The equipment is funded by Touch the World Inc., a same nonprofit organization. Touch the World's stated mission is to introduce young people, ages 7-22, to Jesus Christ.
"And so these guys," Escobar continued, returning to the lepers, "as they were walking around, they all instantaneously got healed. But there was only one guy who turned around and came back and said 'Thank you' to Christ. And that blew me away.
"The point is," Escobar summarized, "Are you willing to go up to a God you can't see and say, 'Thank you'? ... Be that guy who turns around and says, 'Thank you."'
And with that, the skaters scrambled to their feet. But it was hard to know if they were inspired by the message because it was time for the free raffle and merchandise.
A neat trick
Tossing the gifts was Steven Wolfe, a lanky 24-year-old veteran skate park director who, with his neat skateboard tricks and sincere, gentle manner, seems to perfectly meld the cultures of God and board.
Wolfe's skate ministry gives a face-lift to the stereotypical grunge-and-mischief skateboarder. Instead of tearing up civic property or smoking cigarettes or pot, these skaters listen to sermons on brotherhood, gratitude and destiny. In his midteens, Wolfe was drawn to the darker path.
"The stereotypical skateboarding culture is smoking dope and doing drugs," he said. "Some of my friends were doing that, and I was wondering, 'Should I explore what the world has to offer or keep following God?"' He embraced the latter.
A graduate of Montclair State University with a degree in marketing, Wolfe's enterprise began in the parking lot a church in Wayne, N.J., where he and friends built ramps and distributed fliers in area skate shops about six years ago. Three summers later, the make-shift park was drawing 300 skaters.
Seeking a new location, Wolfe made a presentation to Touch the World.
His pitch worked, and earned Wolfe a job at Touch the World. A Midland Park businessman donated his silky-smooth parking lot, and Wolfe rounded up some 20 other sponsors -- many of them local construction and landscape firms that donated materials for the ministry, which is free to users.
With a donated forklift, they set up and tear down the ramps every Saturday from April through October, weather permitting.
Opponents
The only complaints have come from a few Midland Park neighbors annoyed by the blasting rock 'n' roll. And then there are those like Ellen Johnson, a native of Midland Park who also happens to be the president of American Atheists, a national group dedicated to church and state -- or church and skate -- separation.
"It's a shame that they're manipulating kids like this," Johnson said. "It's a marketing strategy and Jesus is their product. You can't get kids with the message alone, so you seduce them through skateboarding."
Chelsey Van Heest, a 13-year-old from Glen Rock, N.J., said she was drawn to the park for a second time because she wanted to escape the girlie-girl pressures of middle school.
The religious message, unexpected on her first visit, seemed a bit odd, she admitted.
"It was like, 'Yeah, y'know, dude, we're here for ya,"' said Chelsey, who was raised a Roman Catholic. "It was kind of funny to have a skateboard person talk about God like that."
But her mother, Alice Van Heest, seated behind the wheel of an SUV in a nearby parking lot, saw it differently. "I think it's good," she said. "Any way you can get them a little religion is good."