 The history of Quinn goes so far back for African-Americans that there's no way that anybody who knows about the history will not recognize how special it really is. Was founded seven years after the city of Chicago was incorporated, so 1844. And it was started by a very small group of African-Americans, just years removed from slavery. A group of businessmen by the name of Armour and Swift and Fields thought that they could support this small group of African-Americans because they believed at that point in time what they were attempting to do and recognized that they need some help. The people that actually are part of this congregation when it started, they were here at the start of the city of Chicago, being a full-fledged city, if you will. Think about the movement in American history. And when you look at American history, you think about African-American history, well, they tie right together. Quinn Chapel was a part of the abolition movement. It helped establish it in the state. Quinn Chapel was also a site and a distribution center for the Underground Railroad. Quinn Chapel also worked and going through history as a facility or a site where African-Americans and people who wanted to bring matters and issues to the public forum could do it. In fact, the building that we're in was built not only as a house of worship, but it was also built as a venue. Each of the pews down there has a number on the side. You could come in, get your ticket, and let's just imagine hearing Duke Ellington in Sacred Concert. But better than that, imagine right back there in that pulpit, George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Presidents McKinley and Taft. And this is in the 1890s to the early 20th century, all in this building to bring a message to the world. We came to Quinn Chapel in 2002. We belonged to the AME Church. And the AME Church assigns pastors through a bishop. And so we were assigned here in 2002. Our first Sunday here was like the first January, first of January. And it's been a wonderful experience. We had never seen a building this big before, that we would be responsible for. We came from Des Moines, Iowa. So we drove up like four o'clock in the afternoon one day. And we had been on the website to see the church and drove up and went, whoa, that's it, because it just went as far up as you could possibly see. And we've been here ever since. The way I characterize the ministry that Corliss and I have been given is one of restoration. Restoration has three components, if you want to look at it this way out. One is restoring the relationship of the people to the God they serve. As a Christian church, one of the first things we had to reestablish was that relationship between the people and God. The second component of restoration is restoring the relationship of the church to the community. And then, of course, is that third component of restoration, and that is restoring the facility and the facilities around us. We had no intentions of restoring the building or anything else. We didn't know what Quinn was when we came. And then, having been here a while and working with the congregation and seeing this magnificent sanctuary, we came to the realization through many, many meetings and talks and strategizing sessions that this building should be restored to its original magnificence. Our initial task was to assess the building. We wanted to understand what the issues were so we could develop a program for the restoration. The first major task was the replacement, total replacement of 13,000 square foot roof. And as that was torn off, we found up to seven layers in places and in some areas we found original slate. At that point in time, the gutters were removed and water started entering the building in places where it hadn't entered before. Because that occurred, we knew that the south wall was in pretty bad shape. We did not know how bad. But subsequently, about a total of $100,000 we removed the outer wife of Masonry, took point at the middle wife of four, and rebuilt the outer wife. And the wall just looks amazing now. I like to call Quinn the little engine that could. And they just pulled together. And because we agreed that Quinn should hold a contingency, they had money set aside and did not miss a beat, paid the Mason, and we kept going. Today, we've been a part of many things that have happened. Just think about the work that was done with the state of Illinois in Katrina. The governor made his announcement of Illinois's response to Katrina at Quinn Chapel. When the mayor of this city wants to get African-American pastors together, it'll happen at Quinn Chapel. When African-American pastors wanted to come and bring the peace among each other. Where does that happen? Quinn Chapel. We're the neutral site, but we're also the site that because we're recognized as that historical beacon, people come back to Quinn Chapel. It's a bridge. It's a bridge now between the development you've seen over at McCormick Place and the people that have lived in this community for decades. Those who are moving in and those who are now building businesses, replacing housing with businesses, and housing is now replacing businesses. We're that bridge. So that's kind of the significance that we hold in the city. And again, politicians, public servants, they all want to be at Quinn Chapel. So that's who we are. The building itself is going to continue to be a safe haven, a place where people come to receive healing, help, hope, home, the things that everybody needs. Okay? So the building represents the location for those things to actually happen. The church itself spiritually and that we have to also consider culturally, socially. We want to see the people of this church exercise more influence, positive influence in the community around us. Okay? So I see Quinn Chapel doing things like community action committees that actually are able to enable us to mobilize where there's a need so that we can quickly address the needs, meet the needs and heal the hurts of the people in the community around us. We're doing a lot of that now, but I know we have a long way to go in being able to be more systematic in our approaches, being able to garner more resources so that we can help more people. That's where we're going. This is a seven to twelve million dollar project and so it's slow and tedious, but when we are finished I think the whole world will pause to see what's been done.