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Theirs Is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America
"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 Campolo, author of Stories That Feed Your Soul Urban ministry activist Robert Lupton moved into a high crime area of Atlanta intending to bring Christ’s message into the ghetto—but his humbling discovery of a spiritual life already flowering in the city’s urban soil forces the minister to reexamine the deepest parts of his own soul, confronting his own patronizing, materialistic attitudes and the biases he himself held against the urban poor.
144 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 1989
26 people are currently reading
512 people want to read
About the author
Robert D. Lupton
7 books27 followersBob Lupton is the founder and president of FCS Urban Ministries, a non-profit organization serving inner-city Atlanta, and is on the board of the Christian Community Development Association. He is a Vietnam veteran, has a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Georgia, and consults and lectures internationally on urban issues.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
March 29, 2007
Each vignette, concise and poignant, is like a piece of candy; what initially seems to be a quick and easy read then lasts for days as particular phrases or images linger in your mind and you mull over some of the finer points. I find Theirs... to be a sweet experience every time I revisit the book.
It is also interesting to see how I've changed over time as I see different things or see things differently in the stories. The real, everyday stories contained in this book continue to challenge me to see things -- such as service, relationships, poverty, and social justice -- increasingly from a Gospel-centered perspective. Granted, this is a collection of one man's thoughts and insights, but Lupton's struggle to reconcile the Gospel truth with the broken reality of this world (starting with our own hearts) encourages me to do the same in my own personal/professional/spiritual life.
It is also interesting to see how I've changed over time as I see different things or see things differently in the stories. The real, everyday stories contained in this book continue to challenge me to see things -- such as service, relationships, poverty, and social justice -- increasingly from a Gospel-centered perspective. Granted, this is a collection of one man's thoughts and insights, but Lupton's struggle to reconcile the Gospel truth with the broken reality of this world (starting with our own hearts) encourages me to do the same in my own personal/professional/spiritual life.
May 9, 2025
talk about convicting and beautiful. Lupton does a phenomenal job of weaving in his honest questions and the truth of scripture— not out of guilt but out of a desire to be one with Christ. the stories moved me. he addresses the poor, addicted, and outcasts in society with high esteem and challenges how the modern church serves and lives separate from them. i think this may be one of my new favorite books!
June 25, 2024
I was really excited to read this book but it didn’t end up being what I wanted it to be. I really enjoyed the first half, but it kind of seemed to fall apart as it went on. At first it felt very humble and unassuming, but as the book progressed, the writer started to seem out of touch with the experiences of people in poverty. (ie., speaking on his own struggles assimilating into his low-income neighborhood as a very privileged individual, or deciding their house was bigger than they needed and deciding to build a whole new, but smaller one, etc.) I had a hard time understanding his position because it seemed to really contradict itself. For example, he was talking about witnessing the struggles of gentrification in his neighborhood, but also perpetuating it. Or, talking about the gospel’s call to share our resources freely with those who are in the most need, but suggestions that felt very capitalistic (as in, his suggestions display the resources NOT being freely given, and need to be earned and hoarded/distributed by people in power).
Despite all of this, I think there were a lot of helpful ideas in this book. Really, the most helpful ideas were about Jesus and his disposition and attitudes toward people in poverty. I definitely think that Lupton has an interesting take on how to solve the issues poverty poses, and I don’t agree with a lot of his methodology. Even so, it is so clear that he has a heart for this community and is trying to serve them in a sustainable and dignifying way, which is inspiring to me! It is very evident that this message is rooted in love.
Some helpful thoughts I’m going to take with me:
“I pray that one day God will bring in a new order in which human beings will rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Perhaps on that day we will refuse the gains made at the expense of others and our success will be measured by the quality of our servanthood to humanity.”
“Referral is serious, too, because it deludes the resourced people of God into believing they have fed, clothed, and housed "the least of these." In fact they have neither shared their bread, nor given their second coat, nor invited a stranger into their home. Referral allows us to process poverty with rubber-gloved safety rather than enter the contaminating world of redemptive relationships.”
(by referral, he is talking about when people are in need and churches just refer them to other resources instead of actually being the resource to help people directly)
“Preserve and maintain. Conserve and protect. They are the words of an ethic that has served us well. Over time these values have subtly filtered into our theology. It is increasingly difficult to separate the values of capitalism from the values of the kingdom. Stewardship has become confused with insurance coverage, with certificates of deposit, and protective coverings for our stained glass. It is an offering, a tithe dropped into a plate to be used on ourselves and our buildings. Somewhere on the way to becoming rich we picked up the idea that preserving our property is preferable to expending it for peo-ple.
Why should it be so difficult to decide which is wiser: to open the church for the homeless to rest or to install an electronic alarm system to preserve its beauty?”
Despite all of this, I think there were a lot of helpful ideas in this book. Really, the most helpful ideas were about Jesus and his disposition and attitudes toward people in poverty. I definitely think that Lupton has an interesting take on how to solve the issues poverty poses, and I don’t agree with a lot of his methodology. Even so, it is so clear that he has a heart for this community and is trying to serve them in a sustainable and dignifying way, which is inspiring to me! It is very evident that this message is rooted in love.
Some helpful thoughts I’m going to take with me:
“I pray that one day God will bring in a new order in which human beings will rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Perhaps on that day we will refuse the gains made at the expense of others and our success will be measured by the quality of our servanthood to humanity.”
“Referral is serious, too, because it deludes the resourced people of God into believing they have fed, clothed, and housed "the least of these." In fact they have neither shared their bread, nor given their second coat, nor invited a stranger into their home. Referral allows us to process poverty with rubber-gloved safety rather than enter the contaminating world of redemptive relationships.”
(by referral, he is talking about when people are in need and churches just refer them to other resources instead of actually being the resource to help people directly)
“Preserve and maintain. Conserve and protect. They are the words of an ethic that has served us well. Over time these values have subtly filtered into our theology. It is increasingly difficult to separate the values of capitalism from the values of the kingdom. Stewardship has become confused with insurance coverage, with certificates of deposit, and protective coverings for our stained glass. It is an offering, a tithe dropped into a plate to be used on ourselves and our buildings. Somewhere on the way to becoming rich we picked up the idea that preserving our property is preferable to expending it for peo-ple.
Why should it be so difficult to decide which is wiser: to open the church for the homeless to rest or to install an electronic alarm system to preserve its beauty?”
June 27, 2019
Jonathan Penn, you were not lying when you said this book was awesome! It's simple and powerful, challenging and encouraging. Theirs is the Kingdom is Robert Lupton sharing short stories of ministry in the inner city. Try to read this and not have some mind-changing ideas about how you interact with the poor and weak around you. Grateful for this book! Thanks Jonathan!
February 7, 2022
Super moving testimonies & realities of poverty & brokenness in the inner city. Would so highly recommend for a change in perspective on the value of simplicity & radical generosity. Would’ve been 5 stars but lowkey had questions about some of the biblical foundations for some ideas.
May 22, 2023
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read! It’s a series of vignettes that speak on Lupton’s time in inner city Atlanta. This was a brand new take on Jesus’ teachings about the poor. Even if you aren’t Christian, I would say this is a fantastic anti-colonial/capitalist view on poverty.
May 28, 2022
SO GOOD!!! Easy read!!! Really challenged my apathetic heart.
January 7, 2024
A compact but profoundly convicting book about urban ministry and how to love the poor like Jesus. The main takeaways for me were:
1. Reciprocal relationships are the key to true, lasting flourishing. This isn't just about logistics (i.e., what kind of programs should your church run—something I believe he talks about in his other book, Toxic Charity), although it's part of that and a crucial idea every church and ministry should implement, but it's also about the heart. Jesus says that those who are poor according to the world will inherit the kingdom. The (financially, socially) poor have access to spiritual (and other) treasure that we (financially, socially) rich can never find on our own. We must respect, value, and learn from our “poor” brothers and sisters, both in the systems we create and the personal relationships we maintain.
2. On that note, real change happens through uncomfortable, personal engagement, not through the safe, mediating, impersonal distance of an organization, online donation, etc. We have to actually enter their lives if we want to help and be helped. This is going to cost us in so many ways. It means we will have to limit the way that we live so that we don't create barriers between the haves and have nots. It means that we will have to let ourselves be hurt, manipulated, and betrayed and still choose to love again.
3. Efficiency, order, and safety are idols that seem so good and yet prevent us from fully following Jesus in his call to love the poor.
This book was challenging for me. I am not someone who feels “called” to help the poor in the sense that I feel deeply passionate or excited about it. I don’t like to volunteer at soup kitchens or regularly buy food for people on the street. When my friends and I made packs of essential supplies to deliver to our homeless neighbors, I secretly feel relieved when someone I pass is sleeping so I can drop it next to them and not have to interact to them. I am actually glad at the dwindling stack of packs in my closet so I no longer have to feel obligated to take one with me and give it to someone. I have friends for whom this is not the case, who recognize that interacting with the homeless is uncomfortable but who feel a great desire and joy to help them. I respect that so much but it is not me. But I told Jesus I’d follow him and he says—more clearly than many other things—to love and serve the poor. He lifts them up. He cherishes them.
For me the smallest step toward trying to open myself up to relationship with people who make me uncomfortable has been to walk on my side of the street. There are a couple courtyards and stoops where people hang out and it makes me uncomfortable, and I had started just crossing the street right away so I didn't have to pass by them. But I felt convicted after reading this that I shouldn't be trying to avoid discomfort or interaction with my literal neighbors. (I should note here that of course I think my safety is important, especially as a single woman, and it is absolutely okay to stay away from situations where there is real danger. Once you have lived in urban environments for a while, you get a pretty good sense for when discomfort is dangerous and when it's just discomfort. I’m trying to stop avoiding the latter while still being smart to avoid the former.) So now I walk home on my side of the street. It's the tiniest thing. But I hope it's a habit that will cascade into other habits.
My one complaint with the book is that its structure is unclear. It's got nine parts with short (usually 1-3 page) chapters, whether his musings on a particular subject or a vignette of one of his experiences in urban ministry. I think they were supposed to be arranged topically but I couldn't really follow what it was, and I wish there was a clearer progression and flow to the book. Then again, maybe that's the whole point: challenging our desire for efficiency and neatness, using the format to show what it feels like to do this kind of ministry: unexpected, seemingly random, confusing, disruptive.
I'm also less anti-institution than he is. Maybe I shouldn't be, but I do think there is a place for larger systemic solutions and that institutions can magnify our resources in positive ways. I do take his point that such organizations should never replace personal, one-on-one relationships and that you can't be content just giving to an organization.
The world is urbanizing and if we are to follow Jesus, that means many of us will be called to love his people in inner cities (whether because the explicitly move there to do that or because we just happen to live nearby). This book is an incredible primer on how to do so faithfully. There is encouragement here, the kind that really calls for courage.
I'm tired of being hooked, deceived, taken from. But when I consider the safer ways of giving, the impersonal media appeals, the professional mailings that would free me from contagion and protect me from seeing the whole picture, I know I must continue touching and be touched. At least I am touched by persons with names and familiar faces. I can confront. I can express disappointment to the one who is betrayed my trust. I can be angry with or embrace the one who has taken from me.
And I can grow. I can see the conditions I place on my giving, my own subtle forms of manipulation. I am confronted with my pride that requires others to conform to my image. I see my need for control, to meter out love in exchange for the responses I desire.
I will opt to be manipulated in person. For somewhere concealed in these painful interactions are the keys to my own freedom.
~
I want to serve truly worthy poor people. The problem is they are hard to find. Someone on our staff thought he remembered seeing one back in ‘76 but can't remember for sure. Someone else reminded me that maybe to be truly poor means to be prideless, impatient, manipulative, desperate, grasping at every straw, and clutching immediate with little energy left for future plans. But truly worthy? Are any of us truly worthy?
~
Outside the stained glass windows, beyond the parking lot, toward the skyline where most of the gifted ones make their living, there is a place that churns with the challenges of eternity. It is the burgeoning center into which the peoples and perplexities of our shrinking globe pour. A place filled with adventure and intrigue, it calls out for the full investment of every gift interested to God's chosen ones. It is the city.
1. Reciprocal relationships are the key to true, lasting flourishing. This isn't just about logistics (i.e., what kind of programs should your church run—something I believe he talks about in his other book, Toxic Charity), although it's part of that and a crucial idea every church and ministry should implement, but it's also about the heart. Jesus says that those who are poor according to the world will inherit the kingdom. The (financially, socially) poor have access to spiritual (and other) treasure that we (financially, socially) rich can never find on our own. We must respect, value, and learn from our “poor” brothers and sisters, both in the systems we create and the personal relationships we maintain.
2. On that note, real change happens through uncomfortable, personal engagement, not through the safe, mediating, impersonal distance of an organization, online donation, etc. We have to actually enter their lives if we want to help and be helped. This is going to cost us in so many ways. It means we will have to limit the way that we live so that we don't create barriers between the haves and have nots. It means that we will have to let ourselves be hurt, manipulated, and betrayed and still choose to love again.
3. Efficiency, order, and safety are idols that seem so good and yet prevent us from fully following Jesus in his call to love the poor.
This book was challenging for me. I am not someone who feels “called” to help the poor in the sense that I feel deeply passionate or excited about it. I don’t like to volunteer at soup kitchens or regularly buy food for people on the street. When my friends and I made packs of essential supplies to deliver to our homeless neighbors, I secretly feel relieved when someone I pass is sleeping so I can drop it next to them and not have to interact to them. I am actually glad at the dwindling stack of packs in my closet so I no longer have to feel obligated to take one with me and give it to someone. I have friends for whom this is not the case, who recognize that interacting with the homeless is uncomfortable but who feel a great desire and joy to help them. I respect that so much but it is not me. But I told Jesus I’d follow him and he says—more clearly than many other things—to love and serve the poor. He lifts them up. He cherishes them.
For me the smallest step toward trying to open myself up to relationship with people who make me uncomfortable has been to walk on my side of the street. There are a couple courtyards and stoops where people hang out and it makes me uncomfortable, and I had started just crossing the street right away so I didn't have to pass by them. But I felt convicted after reading this that I shouldn't be trying to avoid discomfort or interaction with my literal neighbors. (I should note here that of course I think my safety is important, especially as a single woman, and it is absolutely okay to stay away from situations where there is real danger. Once you have lived in urban environments for a while, you get a pretty good sense for when discomfort is dangerous and when it's just discomfort. I’m trying to stop avoiding the latter while still being smart to avoid the former.) So now I walk home on my side of the street. It's the tiniest thing. But I hope it's a habit that will cascade into other habits.
My one complaint with the book is that its structure is unclear. It's got nine parts with short (usually 1-3 page) chapters, whether his musings on a particular subject or a vignette of one of his experiences in urban ministry. I think they were supposed to be arranged topically but I couldn't really follow what it was, and I wish there was a clearer progression and flow to the book. Then again, maybe that's the whole point: challenging our desire for efficiency and neatness, using the format to show what it feels like to do this kind of ministry: unexpected, seemingly random, confusing, disruptive.
I'm also less anti-institution than he is. Maybe I shouldn't be, but I do think there is a place for larger systemic solutions and that institutions can magnify our resources in positive ways. I do take his point that such organizations should never replace personal, one-on-one relationships and that you can't be content just giving to an organization.
The world is urbanizing and if we are to follow Jesus, that means many of us will be called to love his people in inner cities (whether because the explicitly move there to do that or because we just happen to live nearby). This book is an incredible primer on how to do so faithfully. There is encouragement here, the kind that really calls for courage.
I'm tired of being hooked, deceived, taken from. But when I consider the safer ways of giving, the impersonal media appeals, the professional mailings that would free me from contagion and protect me from seeing the whole picture, I know I must continue touching and be touched. At least I am touched by persons with names and familiar faces. I can confront. I can express disappointment to the one who is betrayed my trust. I can be angry with or embrace the one who has taken from me.
And I can grow. I can see the conditions I place on my giving, my own subtle forms of manipulation. I am confronted with my pride that requires others to conform to my image. I see my need for control, to meter out love in exchange for the responses I desire.
I will opt to be manipulated in person. For somewhere concealed in these painful interactions are the keys to my own freedom.
~
I want to serve truly worthy poor people. The problem is they are hard to find. Someone on our staff thought he remembered seeing one back in ‘76 but can't remember for sure. Someone else reminded me that maybe to be truly poor means to be prideless, impatient, manipulative, desperate, grasping at every straw, and clutching immediate with little energy left for future plans. But truly worthy? Are any of us truly worthy?
~
Outside the stained glass windows, beyond the parking lot, toward the skyline where most of the gifted ones make their living, there is a place that churns with the challenges of eternity. It is the burgeoning center into which the peoples and perplexities of our shrinking globe pour. A place filled with adventure and intrigue, it calls out for the full investment of every gift interested to God's chosen ones. It is the city.
March 11, 2024
This read was incredible.. THANKS MARY for the gift.
“But the church—how does it view the city? Church growth experts see the city as a problem because its diversity makes homogenous grouping difficult to achieve on a large scale. Denominations aren’t able to replicate their traditional church models here very well. And keeping alive the old city structures is quite a drain on our resources. The city making us realize that sameness is a failure.
Maybe, just maybe, God will use the city to remind us that all his unique individual masterpieces clustered together in high rises and housing projects and neighborhoods bear a reflection of his original design. Perhaps it will be in the city that the church will rediscover the richness of diversity interacting in hard-earned unity.
I wonder why God has selected for our place of final destiny the City of God!”
“But the church—how does it view the city? Church growth experts see the city as a problem because its diversity makes homogenous grouping difficult to achieve on a large scale. Denominations aren’t able to replicate their traditional church models here very well. And keeping alive the old city structures is quite a drain on our resources. The city making us realize that sameness is a failure.
Maybe, just maybe, God will use the city to remind us that all his unique individual masterpieces clustered together in high rises and housing projects and neighborhoods bear a reflection of his original design. Perhaps it will be in the city that the church will rediscover the richness of diversity interacting in hard-earned unity.
I wonder why God has selected for our place of final destiny the City of God!”
December 5, 2016
This book has drastically changed the way I look at poverty and urban ministry. Lupton is brutally honest and does a great job of backing up his thoughts with biblical truth. A good read for any Christian who wants to have their world turned upside down.
July 5, 2017
My understanding is that Lupton's other book, Toxic Charity, has a lot of practical tips. This would make sense as this book is more about vision than means. I found it to be very helpful to help grow my heart for those in the inner city. And not just grow my heart for the idea of the least of these but to actually grow my heart for people, individual people.
Lupton is a fantastic story teller and has the right amount of biblical truth throughout the book.
I found his discourses on time spent with people and relationships being the efficiency of the Kingdom to be the most convicting and telling of my own heart. How many times have I rushed past people or rushed through people in order to get to my own agenda of building what I thought was the kingdom of God. The stories and realizations are heart breaking.
I would definitely recommend this book and found it to be an easy red that was still quite challenging!
Lupton is a fantastic story teller and has the right amount of biblical truth throughout the book.
I found his discourses on time spent with people and relationships being the efficiency of the Kingdom to be the most convicting and telling of my own heart. How many times have I rushed past people or rushed through people in order to get to my own agenda of building what I thought was the kingdom of God. The stories and realizations are heart breaking.
I would definitely recommend this book and found it to be an easy red that was still quite challenging!
June 28, 2018
Managed to read this thin book during a 2 hour flight. But the width of the book is no indication of the depth and sense of beauty and discomfort that Lupton brings you through. As a series of 2-3 page short stories, the book paints scenes of how he and his family have come to grips with living with and loving the materially poor. He paints pictures of broken people and systems. He examines the shame and breaking of the spirit that many in urban poverty face, gripping the heart. The author does not have an overly explicit structure of argument, convincing us to do this or that. He simply thrusts the portraits of urban life and the church in front of the reader and we must make sense of it. I will definitely be reading through this again in the week to come just to process more.
May 11, 2018
A short, powerful, convicting read. The book is written in a series of vignettes that challenges the failures and brokenness of the Church today in how our need for sterility, order, and control inhibits our ability to serve and experience the fullness of Christ. This book was published thirty years ago but is still relevant today - it leaves me feeling humble, wanting to change, and surrender my comfort zone to grow closer in faith. We have so far to go in building relationships, inviting hospitality, living for today and bearing each other's burdens. I borrowed this book from a colleague but have it in my shopping cart now to re-read and share with others.
May 19, 2022
Being a Christian is horrifically, heartbreakingly difficult. You need to not just do nice things but have correct motives in so doing, and you need to be willing to accept bad results at any time. This is a series of stories and thoughts about how that works specifically in the urban environment, on the borderlines between affluence and poverty. How can we give without taking dignity away from the people that we give to? How can we get to a place where we're willing to have our hearts broken, again and again, in the hopes that others might have their hearts touched by the gospel? This book feels like the real deal. Read it and talk to me about it. Let's start getting these things right.
August 2, 2017
Finished reading this in a couple hours. Could not put it down. Tears. Convictions.
The nutgraf: There is only one activity in this world that proves the deity and beauty of Christ, and the authenticity of Christ's followers. It's distinguished, disarming, and unique. It is a command, it is optionless. It is love as described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. How much do we card-carrying Christians display that love to our family, our neighbors, our city, our world?
The nutgraf: There is only one activity in this world that proves the deity and beauty of Christ, and the authenticity of Christ's followers. It's distinguished, disarming, and unique. It is a command, it is optionless. It is love as described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. How much do we card-carrying Christians display that love to our family, our neighbors, our city, our world?
February 14, 2022
This book is an eye-opener regarding the urban poor. I admire the author and his family for their commitment and honesty. They moved into the inner city to live among their constituents and experience life similar to the people that they serve. Similar to Toxic Charities, another of the author's books, this book makes one think and re-think strategies for providing assistance to folks in need. Although good intentioned, when are we helping and when are we hurting? The book also encourages understanding and compassion for the struggle of others.
February 4, 2025
“Maybe, God will use the city to remind us that all his unique individual masterpieces clustered together in high rises and housing projects and neighborhoods bear a reflection of his original design. Perhaps it will be in the city that the church will rediscover the richness of diversity interacting in hard-earned unity.”
October 15, 2018
The first few stories were ok. But then it got annoying. You know how when you're a teenager you write/think things that seem so profound, and then when you look back on it it's kinda silly? Well, this is a collection of those profound-but-not thoughts.
July 17, 2023
Other books are a better investment
Other books accomplish more, and in a better way. It isn’t a terrible read, but it is short and only revelatory if one has never stepped outside their middle or upper middle class shell.
Other books accomplish more, and in a better way. It isn’t a terrible read, but it is short and only revelatory if one has never stepped outside their middle or upper middle class shell.
January 11, 2024
This book changed my life and will forever be a book I hold close to my heart and beliefs. Will never get tired to reading these short stories of hope, love, companionship, strength, grace, and humility.
January 15, 2025
Every short chapter managed to give a good punch to the gut before it ended. As it’s an older book I wish some of the language was different, but overall a very worth it read. Gonna keep thinking and being challenged by the thoughts in these stories.
January 27, 2025
Favorite book I've read this year. Deeply Disturbing in the best ways challenged my way of life. Loved the structure short chapters that are stories many of which don't have solutions they just leave you thinking!
July 31, 2025
It kind of falls off towards the end, but on the whole it is entertaining, wholesome, convicting, and challenging. Any Christian who goes to church in a city, lives in a city, or lives near a city, should read this - so most Christians!
June 22, 2017
I thought it was very interesting. The stories were very well written.
November 12, 2017
My friends in urban ed - read this.
My friends outside the urban poverty world - read this.
My friends outside the urban poverty world - read this.
February 1, 2018
Something you could read again and again
January 3, 2020
Good book for anyone serving in church ministry! I so appreciate his insight and heart!
April 23, 2020
Amazing. Any one working, living, loving in inner city or disadvantaged communities must read.
August 24, 2020
So many nuggets. So much to think about. Encouraging, convicting and challenging.
July 16, 2023
There are other books that accomplish this concept in a better way. There is nothing revelatory here unless you've never stepped out from the umbrella of white middle or upper middle class privilege.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews