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The following passages are excerpted from Voices of Faith: Making a Difference in Urban Neighborhoods. The book of essays and photographs was published in 1998 by The Polis Center.

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I knew immediately when I came back that I wasn�t going to leave Fountain Square, and I�m so glad that I didn�t.� At the time that I came back from Pakistan, I must have had ten to twelve missionary colleagues who were in a missionary home, and it would have been the easiest thing to go there.� That was when I really decided that my next missionary career would be to Fountain Square.� I didn�t want to desert where I belonged.� I think, really, that the inspiration to service was instilled by my father and mother.� My parents were people who cared about the community and about neighbors.� We always had neighbors who were friends with.� I think that�s where it starts�being neighborly.

�Helen Fehr

�A Need Known is a Call�



When I was child the races were very, very defined—black and white did not mix. And a group led by a ministered named Bobo, from the Fountain Square Church of Christ, decided that they would start going west and just top at every Church of Christ and fellowship. When they got to our church, I remember a group of them being in the back. And my father said, "I see some of our white brethren in the back. Would you like to say something? And Brother Bobo got up and said that they didn't believe it was going to be segregated in heaven, so they couldn't see why we were segregated here on earth and they would like to fellowship. And my fathers said, "Well, that makes good sense." So, sometimes Brother Bobo would preach at our church, and my father would preach in the Fountain Square Church of Christ. When my father came here, he'd bring us with him. And I never felt out of place.

—Estella Silas

"Faith is that Glow from Within"

 

One of the things I predicted was that the city would rebuild itself from the inside out, and that has happened.� It�s happening much faster than I expected.� The renewal is spreading out.� It�s not confined to just downtown.� The continuing presence of the churches is very, very important in that transformation.

—Harry Huxhold

�Saving a Church in the City�

 

The doing of justice as an expression of the Good News is perhaps the most obviously missing part of the generally accepted agenda of the church today.�

�John Hay

�Proclaiming Grace and Doing Justice�

 

You don�t see the church in a visible role out in the community as you should.� If each church on each block would get out and minister on their block, we wouldn�t have a drug problem.

�Olgen Williams

�There�s Still a Fire Burning�

 

Well before there was a welfare department, well before there were ever social workers, there was the church.

�Walter Walters

�Faith Has Eyes, Ears, Hands, and Feet�