We wouldn’t have thought of ourselves as
prideful. We had programs coming out of our
ears, but we were absent in the community.
When our church building was boarded up and
we moved into a school, God began taking us
through Phase One of becoming influential. It’s
called brokenness.
I don’t know why I was drawn to this neglected
part of town except I wanted to get a feel for the
city. The library sat on infamous Colfax Avenue,
which runs through five municipalities in and
around Denver, including Aurora. Spending
one day a week at the inner-city library wasn’t
comfortable. Still, I was determined to stay . . .
and to learn.
Phase Two: Discovery
This painful season of brokenness caused me
to think differently, and for reasons I can’t fully
explain, I decided to work out of the MLK Library
in our urban corridor on Thursdays of each week.
On Thursdays, I drove over there, opened my
laptop, and began meeting with community
leaders, city council members, government
workers, pastors, teachers, principals, and
nonprofit leaders—a new appointment
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