Bart Campolo is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks, writes, and blogs about grace, faith, loving relationships, and social justice. Bart is the leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship in inner-city Cincinnati. He is also founder of Mission Year, which recruits committed young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods across the U.S., and executive director of EAPE, which develops and supports innovative, cost-effective mission projects around the world.

Posts By This Author

Keeping the Faith

by Bart Campolo 04-11-2008

For as long as I can remember, I've ended my letters and e-mails with the encouragement "Keep the faith." I must have picked that up from my father, since he's the only person I know who signs off the same way. It might have been more lucrative for me to have picked up "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" instead, but I've always preferred the flexibility of the simpler phrase. Not everyone who hopes for God's grace is a Christian, after all, and we who are surely hope for more than that. We [...]

Inner-City Riches

by Bart Campolo 03-31-2008

We've gotten enough calls and e-mails from folks concerned about my state of mind for me to think it's probably time for a more upbeat post. If you've been among those worried, you can rest assured that I'm far from despair. On the contrary, I can't remember ever feeling more alive than I have these past few years in Cincinnati, in spite of all the trouble and confusion we've found here. My [...]

Inner-City Smell-O-Vision

by Bart Campolo 02-25-2008

No words can really communicate the essence of what we are doing here. For that, you'd need Smell-O-Vision.


In case you didn't know, Smell-O-Vision was a system developed in the 1950s that released odors during the projection of a movie so that the viewer could actually smell what was happening onscreen. Thirty years later, cult filmmaker John Waters tried the same thing with scratch [...]

I'm an Idiot

by Bart Campolo 02-12-2008

Lately I keep wishing I was somebody else. Somebody different. Somebody better than me.


Don't worry. I'm not depressed. I am well aware that I have many good qualities and many more good friends. My marriage is strong. My kids are fine. Moreover, I am ever increasingly convinced that the God of love loves me, no matter what I do or don't do.


Unfortunately, none of those things changes the fact that, after nearly 45 years of countless growth opportunities, I remain essentially [...]

Being Poor is a Lot of Work

by Bart Campolo 12-18-2007

Until very recently, I had no idea how hard it is for some of our friends just to find somewhere to lay themselves down to sleep at night. I knew that inner-city families moved around a lot, but I didn't realize how much heartache and humiliation goes before and after most of those moves, both for the families and for the neighborhoods they come and go from in search of better space.


Part of the problem is low incomes, of course, which leave almost everyone around here one minor [...]

The War in Our Neighborhood

by Bart Campolo 12-03-2007

Suddenly it seems there's a full-scale war going on in our neighborhood, and we and our neighbors here are in a new kind of danger.


On their way back to college after helping out at our weekly dinner party, our friends Jenny and Alyssa stopped at an intersection and noticed a group of guys milling around in the early evening, less than a block from our church. A moment later, guns started [...]

I Hate It When All You Can Do Is Pray

by Bart Campolo 07-10-2007

I'm not friendly with the white-shirted drug dealers who work the corners near my house yet, but at least they acknowledge me as a neighbor now, instead of looking me over as a prospective buyer