As a teenager, I learned that the church was meant to be God’s hands and feet in the world. One incident especially helped me understand this.

We used to hang our clothes on the back porch to dry. One morning they were missing. Walking through the neighborhood, I noticed two sisters wearing our clothes.

I ran home to tell my mom, expecting her to be angry and to go get justice. Instead, she simply said, “Well, I guess they needed them more than we did.”

In that moment, I understood what it meant to love your neighbor.

In Matthew 25, Jesus said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”

For me, the lesson that day was, “When I needed clothes, you clothed me.”

Experiences like this led me to a career of working with justice- and community-based ministries and nonprofits.

One of these was DOOR, Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection. For more than 30 years, DOOR worked with communities in Atlanta, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles and my hometown, Chicago.

DOOR had various affiliations with Mennonite Church USA institutions and Presbyterian Church (USA). Its community-engaged work was a good fit for me.

In its Discover program, DOOR hosted church groups for mission and service learning.

With the tagline, “see the face of God in the city,” DOOR made it clear that local communities were not looking for heroes or saviors but that groups would come to learn and try to give back in gratitude for what the community shared with them.

Over the years, in each of my roles at DOOR — assistant city director, Chicago city director and executive director — I saw transformation happen for Discover participants.

I continue to hear from youth and their pastors that the Discover experience changed the course of their lives and ministries — especially because of how they experienced Black and Brown communities in our cities. There were holy moments that brought a lot of joy.

Yet, even with the orientation of humility and attitude of learning that DOOR strove for, groups often came with assumptions about me, other DOOR staff and our communities.

White participants often would assume I was not the person in charge. Many of my experiences reflected the tensions of providing learning experiences for predominantly White participants in communities of color.

Years ago, to support people-of-­color communities, DOOR added the Discern program alongside Discover. “Discerners” were young people of color hired as summer staff to lead Discover groups.

Although Discern provided good paying jobs and leadership opportunities for young people of color, it also came with a lot of racial microaggressions from the Discover groups, whose assumptions and lack of knowledge about the city and its people exposed our young leaders to these racialized assumptions.

As the first Black/queer/woman to be executive director of DOOR, I grappled with these tensions. Were we investing in the transformation and lift of all people, or just some?

DOOR’s financial engine was the summer Discover program, which brought in the majority of revenue. While this made it hard to decenter the Discover program, it was even harder to lead an organization that was exposing me and young adults from my community to racialized harm.

The pandemic provided an opportunity to cast a new vision. Discover groups were no longer able to come, which meant a large part of our income stopped.

Looking for ways to keep DOOR relevant, I gathered women of color to create a teaching collective. Instead of non-people of color coming to learn about the city, we centered women of color teaching on relevant topics in ways that were broadly accessible virtually.

We started to rebuild with the voices of women of color. Women of color were disproportionately losing jobs, community and connection due to COVID-19 illness and deaths. At the same time, they were caring for their families and looking for other ways to create income.

I saw the uptick of women-of-color entrepreneurs. I heard about their struggles to sustain their businesses. Reflecting on my life — focused on my core values of intimacy, impact, creativity and joy — I felt a renewed calling.

I have benefited from coaches and mentors and others who shared their expertise. I began to dream about how woman-of-color entrepreneurs could gain access to similar resources.

I brought this vision to the board of directors in December 2021 and received unanimous support. DOOR would transition to be centered on women of color.

In 2022, we launched the first cohort of our entrepreneurship-development program for women of color, SheRoars. It supports women of color ages 26 and older who work with an existing business or intend to start one.

The eight-month program offers support for business and leadership development, including one-on-one coaching. Those who complete the program receive seed funding to support their businesses.

With this new focus, this year we are officially launching our new name. DOOR Network is now doing business as We Collectively.

The neighborhood I grew up in informs my way of thinking about community. When I went away to college, the whole community sent me to college. I grew up with the idea that it takes everyone to help each of us succeed.

In the first year of SheRoars, there were seven in the cohort — and 18 of us working together to love and nurture them through workshops, training, feedback and coaching.

Women of color — often considered “the least of these” — have assets, gifts and skills to share. We Collectively are “the ones we’ve been waiting for” to turn possibilities into realities.

As I remember my mom’s teaching on that summer day long ago, I think about needs and assets. What are the needs we feel within ourselves and see around us? What are the assets we have to share? We Collectively is trying to recognize both.

When Jesus invites his disciples to serve others in Matthew 25, he teaches that he himself is the needy one. It’s as though he is saying, “If you love me, love this one, too. Because we are not separate. We are one.”
Jesus calls us into community that values each one’s presence, dignity and value. We Collectively is seeking to do this in new ways.

If we pool our assets — knowledge, wisdom, experience, love, finances — we participate in lifting and transforming all, as Jesus modeled.

Andrea Sawyer Kirksey is executive director of We Collectively (formerly DOOR Network). Born and raised on the west side of Chicago, she and her wife, Nanette, now live in Rogers Park. Learn more about We Collectively at wecollectively.org.