This is the powerful, intriguing and highly amusing story of Robin Oake, a Christian police officer who has found a strong, sustaining faith through the tough times. An entertaining, touching and often fdlaugh-out-loudfd account of an incredible life, laced with the infectious humour of a man who has really lived his life fully for God. Even the murder of his son, Stephen - a member of the Special Branch, Manchester didn't affect his view of policing as a great vocation - he urges us to judge for ourselves as he shares his extraordinary life story.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN TWO SEMINARY PROFESSORS LEAVE their classrooms and spend time among the homeless people and teach on city streets? In this unique collection of essays and sermons, Stanley P Saunders and Charles L. Campbell reflect on their encounters with the homeless folks in Atlanta and seek to discern the way of Jesus on the streets of the city. These passionate, often moving writings demonstrate the power of Scripture to shape the way we see the world, and they explore the significance of social location for exegesis, ethics, worship, and preaching. From the perspective of the street, central Christian practices such as baptism, Eucharist, and preaching come to life in new ways. Scripture takes on fresh meaning too, while ancient insights into the principalities and powers, the practice of scapegoating, and the organization of households become contemporary and immediate. Even theological themes--grace and discipleship, sin and forgiveness, crucifixion and resurrection--look different when take to the street. Accented by six powerful artworks from Christina Bray's exhibit Street Prayers/Spiritual Journeys, this book also sheds light on the problem of homelessness in America and calls the church to action. Through their reflection on personal experiences and their interpretation of biblical texts, Saunders and Campbell provide meaningful theological categories for addressing pressing social issues in the urban context, making The Word on the Street a helpful resource on the realities of poverty, race, and injustice.

In the fast changing culture of antebellum New York, writers of every stripe celebrated "the City" as a stage for the daily urban encounter between the familiar and the inexplicable. Probing into these richly varied texts, Hans Bergmann uncovers the innovations in writing that accompanied the new market society— the penny newspapers' grandiose boastings, the poetic catalogues of Walt Whitman, the sentimental realism of charity workers, the sensationalism of slum visitors, and the complex urban encounters of Herman Melville's fiction. The period in which New York, the city itself, became firmly established as a subject invented a literary form that attempts to capture the variety of the teeming city and theflaneur, the walking observer. But Bergmann does not simply lead a parade of images and themes; he explores the ways in which these observers understood what was happening around them and to them, always attentive to class struggle and race and gender issues.God in the Streetshows how the penny press and Whitman's New York poetry create a new mass culture hero who interprets and dignifies the city's confusions. New York writers, both serious and sensationalist, meditate upon street encounters with tricksters and confidence-men and explore the meanings of encounters. Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrinever" underlines the unrelenting isolation and inability to control the interpreter. Bergmann reinterprets Melville'sThe Confidence Manas an example of how a complex literary form arises directly from its own historical materials and is itself socially symbolic. Bergmann sees Melville as special because he recognizes his inability to make sense of the surface of chaotic images and encounters. In mid-century New York City, Melville believes God is in the street, unavailable and unrecognizable, rather than omnipresent and guiding. Author note:Hans Bergmannis Professor of English and Cultural Studies at George Mason University.

What do God and the Caped Crusader have in common? While Batman is a secular superhero patrolling the fictional streets of Gotham City, the Caped Crusader is one whose story creates multiple opportunities for believers to talk about the redemptive spiritual truths of Christianity. While the book touches on Batman’s many incarnations over the last 70 years in print, on television, and at the local Cineplex for the enjoyment of Batman fans everywhere, it primarily focuses on Christopher Nolan’s two wildly popular and critically acclaimed movies—movies that not only introduced a new generation to a darker Batman, but are also loaded with spiritual meaning and redemptive metaphors.

I didn't have a clue what God had planned for my future, which was preparing me for not only just a mission field relating to the homeless, but so engraving into my heart and mind, by personal experience it ended up, the way most of them feel about their circumstances. They all have their own story. I know I have mine as well. I discovered we had a lot in common. We really did! Most of us worked together on different jobs, we shared the good and bad stories of our lives, our hopes and dreams as well. When we found others we could trust and get along with, we had a tendency to camp together. I was a born again Christian and liked nothing better than to share, with those who were receptive, my faith and hope in Jesus Christ. Some weren't interested, but those who were we were able to form a pretty tight bond. I was establishing a good re-pore, reputation, over the days, weeks, months and years I worked with some of them. I only lived the homeless life because being an unskilled laborer as I was, minimum wage was never enough to even seriously think about trying to get an apartment and work as sporadic as it was, I needed the money for necessities. I'd go for days on end with no money. It was rough, very rough. Because of growing respect for me and my faith I was able to lead some to a personal faith-relationship with Christ, and this was the climax of my life, when that would happen. Living out in the elements, for years, sometimes in less time, depending on the individual, takes its toll on ones physical health and ability to work every day, as one would hope to. Some would get sick, some would get injured, some would get robbed and left for dead for someone else to come across them later on. The rain would soak you, the cold would freeze you, sickness would seem like a living hell; crying wouldn't help anything. Church people said they loved us and treated us with utter condescending jeers- it made a person heart-sick and soon it would make a person start to wonder if there was really hope for things to get better. I grew angry, not for myself, but for the others, whose lives seemed to be in the balance of life and death on a daily bases; and I sought out God as to what I could do to make a difference for THEM. I went church to church pleasantly, but urgently seeking for them to contribute money to help missions that help the homeless find work and a real place to live; but I was laughed at, I was cruelly ( by supposedly up-standing pastors), mocked, and I was lied on. This infuriated me, but I kept it to myself. In time God began to work in me what now I see as a writing ministry, now that I have my own place to live, and I still go to Bible Study meetings weekly, to stay in contact with those I've known for years and to meet the newer ones. I see tangible evidence of God moving in their lives, and helping them get places to live and I see smiles on their faces now... PRICELESS smiles! This my reward, THANK GOD FOR THAT!!! Enjoy the book JOURNEY OF THE STREETS!!!!!!!

From the barrios of Texas and California to the leadership of the CCDA, Noel Castellanos has never seen the work of the cross separated from the needs of the neighborhood—except in the imaginations of too many Christians. Embrace a life-giving gospel that demonstrates compassion, confronts injustice and restores individuals and communities to wholeness.