City smarts

Interview: Atlanta inner-city expert Robert Lupton rethinks ministry to the poor in a new book | Marvin Olasky

"Be a servant organization that decreases so that others may increase"—Lupton

For more than 35 years Robert Lupton has worked to improve the lives of the poor in inner-city Atlanta. Through FCS Urban Ministries, which he directs, he has started and developed three mixed-income subdivisions with housing for hundreds of families, two multiracial churches, and many businesses and community services.

Lupton speaks from experience when he writes in his new book, Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life (Regal, 2007), "When individuals, like communities . . . abandon self-pity, self-indulgence and blame to face the hard work of building (or rebuilding) their lives, they have taken a giant step toward health. . . . It is a long journey from softhearted, one way charity to reciprocal, interdependent relationships." We asked him to show us some of the routes.