c. 1999 Religion News Service

NEWPORT, Del. _ A year ago, 15-year-old Fritz Dallago was poised for a ride on the fast-track to nowhere. He had adopted the all-black Goth look; he idolized Marilyn Manson; he had a bad attitude and little respect for authority, making life difficult for his aunt who was raising him. There was clearly trouble on the horizon.

Then Dallago found God _ in a skate park.

The Newport Skate Park, however, is far from your typical house of worship. No altar. No pews. No organ. Just a collection of plywood ramps for skateboarding and in-line skating built under a highway overpass.

But there’s no mistaking the religious influence: The graffiti is fish symbols and crosses. The music, Christian rock. And the park’s founder a Pentecostal minister.

Some 500 teen-age boys _ most of them from this working-class town west of Wilmington _ pay the $45 annual membership fee for year-round skating in a former asphalt and concrete wasteland under Route 4. They say the park offers them a safe haven, a community and, in some cases, a chance to explore their spirituality.”It gives them a place to go and gives us a place to reach them,”said Keith Marvel, the pastor and founder of the ministry.”If they have problems, we pray with them. If they break up with a girlfriend or their mother and father split up, they understand we’re out here to listen.” Overseeing a recent skateboard tournament 43-year-old Marvel, decked out in a Polo shirt and khaki shorts and standing atop the platform of a full pipe where boarders plunge off at a 90-degree angle, looks more Little League coach than preacher.

That morning 60 young people stood respectfully with helmets at their sides as Marvel opened the competition with a prayer thanking God for the good weather and asking for the safety of the participants.

Only three years ago, town leaders tried to make the area off limits, following an assault on a street cleaner.”Skateboarders were congregating there at all hours,”said Marvel.”There was drinking, drugs and turf wars between skateboard clubs.”Finally the town ripped up the makeshift skateboard ramps. Then Marvel jumped in and said he wanted to make it a legitimate skate park.

He formed a nonprofit organization _ Better Life Outreach Ministries _ recruited ministers from other churches to serve on the board and arranged to lease the land from the state for $1. Private grants, membership and collection buckets on the street fund the park’s $65,000 budget.

Marvel and his student ministers hold Bible study in”the bowl”_ one of the skate structures _ on Wednesday nights and stage biblical plays on some weekends, but skaters are free to choose whether they want to participate in the religious activities.”We have Jewish and Muslim members,”said Marvel.”We have everyone sign a waiver that they understand we are a Christian organization and that they may be approached. But they can take it or leave it.” Marvel says as far as he knows he runs the only Christian skate park in the country.

He understands troubled boys, he says, because he was one himself.”I was an alcoholic and drug addict. It took me 30 years to receive Christ.”Marvel converted in 1989 at a recovery center in Biloxi, Miss.

He went on to receive a degree in theology and became an associate pastor at Metroplex Chapel in the Dallas-Fort Worth area before returning to Newport in 1995 to set up Family Life Church, which is affiliated with International Pentecostal Holiness Churches.

Many churches open their doors to kids, says Marvel; the catch is getting them to come in. The skate park is a natural draw. He and his staff try to gently nurture relationships with the teen-agers, but he says he’s not afraid to employ a little tough love to tackle the toughest cases.”Sometimes they need to be beat over the head with the Bible. I get in their face,”said Marvel, pondering the changes that have occurred since he was a child in the neighborhood.”The family has broken down so much there are a lot of broken homes.” He says he’s seen a sudden hunger for spirituality among teen-agers in his small church since the massacre at Columbine High School. In the past two months the size of his church’s youth group has doubled.”Kids are scared; they see they could die like anyone else,”Marvel said.

Cassie Bernall, the Columbine teen who was asked if she believed in God before she was fatally shot, has become a powerful role model for the young people in his congregation as she has for others elsewhere.”She stood up for her faith,”said Marvel.”The kids say, `We want to be like that girl.'” But Marvel is concerned the skateboarding subculture that appeals to teens’ rebellious nature is promoting sex and violence. Pulling out a glossy skateboard magazine he points out pictures of scantily-clad women and images he says appear to glorify hell and the devil.”One producer has ads that say `Hell is good.’ Kids believe that,”he said. At the same time local governments are moving to ban skateboarding on city streets and fine kids if they are caught.”Because they’re skateboarders they’re rejected. They think society hates them,”said Marvel.

Some Newport skaters say it can be cool to be Christian. Sam Williamson, a spunky 13-year-old park regular, shrugs off the occasional teasing about his faith and the religious bent of the skate park.”Some like it, some don’t, it doesn’t bother me.””These kids want to be different,”said Marvel.”Why not say `I’m a Jesus freak.'” Marvel’s ministry is not always successful.”We lose some to drugs,”he said.

But not Fritz Dallago. He now spends four days a week at the park and Sunday mornings in church. Dressed in an oversized sleeveless T-shirt and baggy shorts, Dallago is the picture of Generation Z, perched on his board and catching big air high above the full-pipe in his quest for top honors in the skateboard tournament.”It’s been awesome,”said the shy eighth-grader of his life since his conversion.”I have direction. I believe I’m going to heaven.” Sometimes, when park demands eat away at the time he has for his wife and two children, Marvel says he wonders why he does it. Then he thinks of Fritz.”He made it pay off. If one person comes to Jesus it’s worth it.”DEA END WORDEN