Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church

"In the heart of an American city, in a neighborhood of such poverty, crime, and despair that a visiting mayor once called it "the beginning of the end of our civilization, a remarkable community has come together - a community that has daringly refused to accept a decline that seemed inevitable, a community that has taken command of its own destiny, a community that has come to experience miracles as everyday occasions." "In little over a decade, Saint Paul Community Baptist Church has transformed one of New York City's most depressed areas into one that is vital, committed, and thriving. Under the leadership of its dynamic and controversial pastor, Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, Saint Paul has successfully shouldered the responsibilities for not only its members' spiritual well-being but also their daily lives. It has built affordable housing, created a school, replaced brothels and numbers joints with family stores. And, through a series of innovative programs, it has rescued even those who have traditionally eluded the black church, from drug abusers to the neighborhood's youth and men. Here is a church that has found the divine in the pulpit and the streets, that has tested and tempered its spirituality in activism."