Faces Beyond Sacred Walls is not a how-to book as much as it is one for individual and church-corporate self-reflections about their social advocacy role to the community of the poor and oppressed. The author takes the reader on a self-examining journey through the difficult and often painful introspective process for addressing the Church's social advocacy role in response to God's original mandate for the poor found throughout the Bible. Using Luke 4:18-19, 21 as his foundational biblical principle for writing, the author stresses the Church, by divine design, has a dual role: evangelism (salvation) and mission (benevolence or poverty relief). In any given context, they may and should complement each other. However, there should be no conflict between ones' commitment as disciples to evangelism and poverty relief. They are hand-in-hand. Through biblical narratives, the author brings the reader to focus on inner conviction about the advocacy's role of the local church. He begins with the premise that the fundamental starting point for transformation and social engagement is our recognition of the integral value in humanity, the beauty of God so often hidden by sin and failure and pain and brokenness. As you read, you will discover the artful dialogue the author implores in highlighting the importance of self-examination towards transformation and social engagement for the purpose of calling the body of Christ in local churches to committed service and ministry to the community of the poor and oppressed. The author makes it plain that if it is our goal to know Christ and make Him known, then Christ will reveal Himself to us as we come face-to-face with "the least of these" in ways we will never meet Him in a Bible study, prayer meeting, or sermon. The author painstakingly argues and engages the reader through such subject matters as God's Mandate for Social Advocacy, The Early Church Concerns for the Poor, Theological Claims for Social Engagement, The Church's Answer to Poverty, Leadership Paradigm Shift, Social Advocacy Challenges, and Rethinking Programs of the Church. Each subject is designed to present a forum for relevant conversation for anyone concerned about the plight of the poor, poverty, lack of relief or means of navigating the bureaucratic system to access such relief, and the role of the church in such a situation. Using the idea of walls, the reader is drawn into an opportunity for serious reflection and dialogue about church-community relationships. Important, because as the author explains, beyond our "specific" sacred walls you will find the many obscure faces of a socially-hurting society: faces that tell stories. Too often, they are specific faces reduced to nothing more than statistics and, at deeper level, testimonies against churches in their community of influence. They are the poor, deemed marginalize by way of costs spent on their behalf and needs that remain unfulfilled. Seldom are they seen as individuals with personalities and considered as deserving of respect. They are nothing more than obscure faces...waiting to be acknowledged. The conclusion of the author is the church has an obligation to engage the entire membership in a journey of discovery about what God is calling them to be, to know, and to do in their lives, and how they can exercise that calling through the church. It is the journey to understand oneself as living in the presence of God and actively engaging in the disenfranchised poor and oppressed community for relief from injustice, brokenness, and suffering. The world is watching to see who truly loves others enough to take action. God is watching to see who is like Him and will love a poor and needy world. One thing for sure, when the church (collectively and individually) makes social advocacy a priority in its life and ministry, it can never expect to be the same.

As Churches boast mightily about memberships, campuses, budgets, staffs, and so on, the comment from a needy community is, So what!How shall we respond to needy communities? Shall we, like many, see social advocacy as work for the government and social service agencies, instead of the Church?This book is not a how-to as much as it is one for self-reflection. Dr. Mims takes the reader on a self-examining journey through the difficult and often painful process of examination of God's social mandate, traditional roles, philosophical structures, church-community relationship boundaries, and identification of new directions for readdressing the Church's social advocacy role.This book is a must for every pastor, Church leader, and member concerned about the role of the Church in the context of the needy. It is designed for individual, group, or class use for serious reflection and dialogue on the role of the Church in a disenfranchised community focusing on: Theological Claims for Social EngagementPlanning Strategies for Advocacy EngagementLeadership Paradigm ShiftSocial Advocacy ChallengesRethinking Programs of the ChurchPeople don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

When the Roberts family's favorite priest started inviting himself to dine at their dinner table weekly, they were delighted to oblige. Then, when the priest started inviting their teenaged son, Michael, on day trips, they were even more pleased to see their son developing a close friendship with their beloved priest. What the family did not know was that the priest was grooming Robert for what would become years on ongoing sexual abuse. In Behind Sacred Walls, Michael describes how he fell under the control of the priest, who abused him verbally, emotionally, and sexually. It was, the priest told him, God's will that the teenager satisfy the priests human needs. Even though he was riddled with shame and guilt, Michael saw no way out of the continuing abuse. Most of all, he feared the pain it would cause his parents if they found out. In the end, Roberts tells how he was eventually able to extricate himself from the abusive relationship with the priest. He also relates the years of red tape he encountered with the Catholic Church while seeking justice.

Comparing the politics of Judaism and Islam, this book demonstrates that common religious political party characteristics in Israel and Turkey can be as striking as their differences.

This stunning photo essay examines the main symbolic motifs of several LDS temples, associating these motifs with sermons or visions in the Book of Mormon.

When a sudden mysterious letter summons city minister Jo Archer from New Jersey to the Caribbean, she is plunged into a world of possibilities so large and obstacles so great she could gain or lose everything she holds dear. In this contemporary adventure novel full of challenge, mystery, romance, grace, plot twists, and ultimate enlightenment, Jo’s search for her identity echoes the true story struggles of two victims who became victors: Joseph, deliverer of famine-struck Israel, and Enrique, liberator of the oppressed Taino people, from whom Jo is directly descended. As Jo confronts her own life-threatening and life-changing quest, she realizes she is “walking in every forgotten, undervalued, and marginalized woman’s dream”—a chance to become the leader whom God destined her to be, amidst the highest adventure of her life.

Modernity and religion are not mutually exclusive. Setting German and Irish church, synagogue and mosque architecture side by side over the last century highlights the place for the celebration of the new within faiths whose appeal lies in part in the stability of belief they offer across time. Inspired by radically modern German churches of the 1920s and 1930s, this volume offers new insights into designers of all three types of sacred buildings, working at home and abroad. It offers new scholarship on the unknown phenomenon of mid-century ecclesiastical architecture in sub-Saharan Africa by Irish designers; a critical appraisal of the overlooked Frank Lloyd Wright-trained Andrew Devane and an analysis of accommodating difficult pasts and challenging futures with contemporary synagogue and mosque architecture in Germany. With a focus on influence and processes, alongside conservationists and historians, it features critical insights by the designers of some of the most celebrated contemporary sacred buildings, including Niall McLaughlin who writes on his multiple award-winning Bishop Edward King Chapel and Amandus Sattler, architect of the innovative Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Munich.