Boardwalk Chapel (formally, "The Boardwalk Chapel") is a summertime Christian

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

outreach on the two-mile

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge ...

on the

barrier island Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of Dune, dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything fro ...

of The Wildwoods,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

which holds 77 consecutive evening services during June, July, and August, open to boardwalkers. In the early 1940s Rev. Leslie Dunn, pastor of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church,

Wildwood, New Jersey Wildwood is a city in Cape May County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Ocean City metropolitan statistical area and is a popular summer resort destination along the Jersey Shore. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's year-rou ...

, walked up and down the

of The Wildwoods conducting

open-air preaching Open-air preaching, street preaching, or public preaching is the act of evangelizing a religious faith in public places. It is an ancient method of proselytizing a religious or social message and has been used by many cultures and religious tradit ...

services. He discovered an empty lot towards the southern end of the boardwalk that was to be sold at a citywide tax

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

. He persuaded fellow church members to allow him to bid, but no more than

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

3,000; Dunn was the highest bidder at $2,950. The Gospel Pavilion, its original name, had been built during the waning months of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Nightly services began in July 1945, a few weeks before Japan's surrender. Since its inception the Chapel has been operated by the Presbytery of New Jersey of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyteri ...

. Its hand-drawn logo depicts the Christian cross rising out of an Atlantic Ocean wave. Over the years, the chapel has become a landmark for tourists visiting Wildwood. In 2005 a ''Washington Post'' travel article said "People come to Wildwood for its beaches ... and for the boardwalk, a roughly three-mile-long human circus of noise, junk food and amusement rides. The boardwalk—part honky-tonk, part family playground—has a few quirks that give it an endearing quality. The ... Boardwalk Chapel, between a tattoo parlor and a pizza parlor, has been the voice in the carny wilderness for 61 years."The Boardwalks of Jersey
, Washington Post, August 10, 2005, p. C02.

References

Sources

#A history of the first fifty years of the OPC titled "The Orthodox Presbyterian Church 1936-1986" () references the work of the Boardwalk Chapel on pp. 134–135.
Rev. Leslie Dunn Memorial 2001
on the Boardwalk Chapel website.

External links

Official site

Baptism by water: Gospel preached on Wildwood boardwalk
, Cherry Hill Courier-Post, July 6, 2014.

(video), Press of Atlantic City, August 22, 2013. {{coord, 38.98283, -74.81628, region:US-NJ_type:landmark, display=title Presbyterian churches in New Jersey Orthodox Presbyterian Church The Wildwoods, New Jersey