"When Bob Lupton speaks of the inner city, the rest of us ought to sit up and take notice. [His work is] deeply disturbing-in the best sense of the word." -PHILIP YANCEY, author of Disappointment with God

"A work born in the passion and pain of a man wrestling with God.... A gripping discovery of God's grace where we least expect to find it-in the decaying core of the city."

-RONALD A. NIKKEL, president, Prison Fellowship International

"The story of Lupton's ministry is one of the most inspiring in America. Those of us who are trying to accomplish something of value in urban settings look to him and his co-workers as models."

-TONY COMPOLO

Robert Lupton-educated and middle class-moved into a high crime area of Atlanta with the intention of bringing Christ's message into the ghetto. In this in-sightful and moving series of vignettes, he shows how his experiences there shattered many of his assump-tions about himself and the nature of poverty in Amer-ica. He soon found that his mission was as much about his own salvation as it was about that of the urban poor. He was surprised to learn that a spiritual life had already taken root in the urban soil, exposing his own patronizing attitudes, materialism, and biases.

Robert Lupton, a popular speaker, is the founder and director of Family Consultation Service, a coalition of community services, in Atlanta, Georgia. Barbara R. Thompson is a freelance writer living in Atlanta, Georgia.