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The Altar You Don't See: The True Cost of Answering the Call
Paperback
Christian LivingGeneral Christianity
Publisher Price: $27.99
ISBN13: 9781905028214
Publisher: REV Dr Marcia Neveu
Published: May 6 2026
Pages: 166
Weight: 0.51
Height: 0.38 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
There is an altar the Church has never fully talked about.
Every minister knows the altar at the front of the church - the place of prayer, surrender, and encounter, where the Holy Spirit moves and lives are transformed. But there is another altar. It does not appear on any church plan, feature in any order of service, or surface in most ministry training programmes. It is the altar where the minister themselves is the offering - not in a single moment of sacrifice, but in the sustained, daily, lifelong laying down of health, family, finances, friendships, emotional reserves, and the very sense of self.
This is the altar nobody talks about. This book is an attempt to bring it into the light.
The Altar You Don't See is an honest, pastoral reckoning with the true cost of answering the call to ministry. Written by a minister, missionary, and Doctor of Ministry who has lived everything she describes, it walks through the full spectrum of what ministry demands - the spiritual dryness that sleep cannot cure, the psychological and emotional weight of carrying a congregation, the moral burden of the watchman's post, the profound social isolation that the role creates, the price paid by the family who never signed the papers, the physical toll the body quietly accumulates, and the financial cost that the Church has too long left unacknowledged.
This is not a book of bitterness. It is a book of love - for the Church, for the men and women who have given their lives to serve her, and for everyone standing at the threshold of the call who needs to count the cost with clear eyes. It draws on the testimonies of Elijah, Jeremiah, Paul, Moses, Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself - ministers who knew the hidden altar from the inside - and refuses the comfortable evasion of pretending the fire does not burn.
And yet, having named every cost, it arrives at the only conclusion the Gospel permits: the call is worth it. The hidden altar is real. And it is the most glorious place on earth to stand.
For seasoned ministers who have never had a safe space to name what ministry has cost them. For emerging leaders who need to count the cost before the fire meets the wind. And for congregations who love their ministers - and are ready to truly see them.
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