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You know, the two most vulnerable people in a culture are kids and old people.

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They're the most vulnerable. And so that should be a high priority in the church.

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When we look at a city, we want to look at a city and dream dreams that God has for that city.

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And we have some choice passages in scripture. I want to look at one

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in Zechariah 8 that gives us an example of how God looked at Zion, how he wanted Zion to look

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in his in his perfect world order. And when we talk about a perfect world order,

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we're talking about the kingdom of God coming to a city. So we have a picture here of how God

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views a city through the eyes of the prophet Zechariah as he's looking at Jerusalem.

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Let me read part of this. I'm zealous for Zion with great zeal, saith the Lord, with great fervor

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I'm zealous for her. Thus says the Lord, I'll return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.

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Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain.

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Thus saith the Lord of hosts, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem,

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each one with his staff in his hand because of their great age. The streets of the city shall

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be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts, if it is marvelous

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in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be marvelous in my eyes,

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saith the Lord. So really interesting passage, one of which I've, I don't know that I've ever

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heard anybody teach this passage, but listen to what he's saying. I'll return to Zion, dwell in

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the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth. A kingdom of God revolution is

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when the spirit of God moves in a city through churches that are united through Christians that

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are bringing righteousness, peace, and joy into that city. And it is called a city of truth.

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In other words, the atmosphere of truth pervades that city. And you say, well, I've never heard

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of a city like that. Well, that's probably because we haven't seen the kind of kingdom

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revolution that God wants to bring yet, but I believe he does want to come and it's going to

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be a city of truth. And so God's truth begins to pervade. Now, where does that start? It starts

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in the pulpits. It starts in the pulpits in the churches by the pastors speaking truth to the

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city, not speaking falsehood, not compromising the good news of the kingdom of God. So it's a city

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of truth. It says it's a mountain of the Lord of hosts. Well, mountain in scripture is often

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associated with the government. So it is an embassy. The church becomes an embassy of the

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kingdom of God. The government of God is flowing through local churches that are churches of truth

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and of righteousness. It's a holy mountain, it says. So there's a holiness that pervades a city

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because the church is holy. But I love this next part. It's really a beautiful, beautiful picture

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of a kingdom of God revolution. Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem,

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each one with his staff in his hand because of great age. The streets of the city shall be full

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of boys and girls playing in the streets. This is a city of safety. This is a county of safety. And

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when I look at Colorado Springs, I often pray that way, Lord, make our city streets safe where

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boys and girls can play, where old men can sit on their porch and be safe. You know, the two most

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vulnerable people in a culture are kids and old people. They're the most vulnerable. And so that

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should be a high priority in the church that we're protecting our kids. We're loving our kids. We have

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a police force. We have a sheriff's office that protects our kids and also protects those older

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folks, the retirees, those that don't have the physical or maybe even the mental acumen to be

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able to protect themselves. So a kingdom of God revolution is making a high priority on old people,

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loving them and caring for them, protecting them, and also our kids. That's why human

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trafficking is so awful, because that is a group of evil people who are taking

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advantage of the innocence and the vulnerability of kids. And this is marvelous in God's eyes.

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That's what a kingdom of God revolution is. When I woke up in the morning, I think it was around

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April, and began to hear the news about this COVID pandemic and that they were going to shut down our

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churches. I was just like all of you, just shocked. That was in the spring of 2020. And

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then our governor in Colorado commanded,

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did that all businesses close and put out an edict that all churches should close.

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And I was obedient in every way because I had no idea what we were dealing with.

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I remember Liz, my wife and I talking and we, he was talking about wearing masks, you

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know what, we were wearing masks before they told us to wear masks.

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And in Liz's case, and in my case, we were wearing gloves.

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So we were wearing gloves and masks.

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And we were very obedient to what was being said until we started doing our own research.

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We started doing research on the virus.

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We started listening to different podcasts and different doctors that were out there

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and groups of doctors that were out there.

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And it took about three weeks for us to figure out, wait, hold on.

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Not only is this not a pandemic, this is more of a scare.

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This seems to be a fear tactic of someone or something that is trying to control us.

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And that actually the measures that they were telling us, that is to stay home, stay inside,

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wear a mask are not only not helpful, they're actually hurtful.

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So we began to kind of rebel against that.

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And so in the process of that, I decided to open up our church.

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So this is only four weeks into the pandemic.

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We're going to open up our church.

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But I didn't want to go to jail by myself.

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I thought if I'm going to go to jail, I'm going to go to jail with a bunch of other guys.

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So I called a meeting and 87 pastors showed up at our church.

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And I announced and myself and three others, we announced we're going to open up our churches

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in the next two weeks.

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And you know, there was a palatable, almost like gasp in the room, because nobody was

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thinking that way except a few of us.

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But I said, guys, here's why.

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And so I explained why I felt like this was what God wanted, at least the road, our church

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to do.

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And about 25 other pastors joined us.

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We opened up our churches and over the next three months or so, many churches open because

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of that.

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Now, why do I share that?

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I share that because when I speak of a kingdom of God revolution, I'm not speaking of a naive,

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obedience to political or even governing authorities.

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God's called us to be obedient to the kingdom of God.

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He says to us, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things

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shall be added unto you.

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The context in Matthew 6, 25 through 33 is that of worry, concern and anxiety.

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And he goes through a whole list there.

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You're anxious about what you wear.

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You're anxious about your finances.

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You're anxious about your future.

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And then he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things,

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those things they were worried about shall be added unto us.

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And so for us at the road and for me in particular, I felt like if I'm seeking the kingdom first,

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if I'm making that the priority of my life and our church, the all these things shall

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be added unto us will take care of themselves.

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So if I make the primary, the kingdom of make the primary, what God's telling me to

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do, he's going to take care of the secondary.

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I like to say it this way.

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If you look up, God will cause things to line up.

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If you'll make your priority to look up, God will make a priority in your life to line

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things up.

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So he takes care of us.

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And that's exactly what he did over that period of the pandemic.

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Simultaneously, I felt so strongly that it was wrong because this had never happened

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in our country before where they were making businesses shut down.

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And you know, for the small business owner, that's like a death knell.

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You've got to, you've got to be selling stuff now for Amazon and for Google or even for

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Walmart or Costco, these big box stores, they let them stay open.

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They considered them to be necessary.

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The church wasn't necessary, but they were necessary.

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The church wasn't necessary, but bars and strip joints were necessary.

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Go figure.

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I went to the county commissioners.

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I knew some of them, most of them I did not know at the time.

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And I had a meeting with them and I challenged them to put out a proclamation.

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I said, why don't you guys put out a proclamation to the city that we are a Liberty County and

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that we oppose what our governor is saying about shutting down businesses.

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And I said, here's what it does.

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Number one, it doesn't give me, it doesn't give you any legal power to cause businesses

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to open up again, but there's something spiritual.

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There's something influential by our five county commissioners.

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getting up unanimously saying we oppose these shutdowns and they agreed and they

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were already thinking that way and I think by our meeting it gave all of us

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more confidence and courage. So they worked up a Declaration of Liberty for

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our county and then they came to the road during one of our worship services

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and shared it. Two of the county commissioners shared it with

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our congregation. There's like five or six standing ovations when they gave it

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and then we went down to the municipal hall where we have county commissioner

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meetings and pretty much everybody there was from the road and we packed it out.

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350 people packed out that auditorium as they made that declaration and it went

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out you know all over the state that declaration did and we gave I think 11

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standing ovations during that first declaration when they gave the the

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challenge basically back to the governor. Well why do I share that? I

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share that because you never know men and women the kind of power that God can

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give you to make an influential choice that can actually impact in our

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case probably around 700,000 people are in our county. We're the largest county

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in the state of Colorado and most people I imagine heard about that. It was in our

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paper, the Gazette, it was on all the news channels, it went out to the whole state

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that we were doing that. It's amazing the power we can have during that time. Well

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I didn't feel like that was enough and so I began talking to other pastors and

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I wrote an op-ed for the Gazette. I knew the editor of the paper. If I write an

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op-ed about being a Liberty County would you print and he said absolutely. So I

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got 25 pastors to sign on. We put out an op-ed in the Gazette which is the

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largest newspaper in Colorado. 25 pastors or 24 pastors and myself so 25 pastors

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we did and wrote this op-ed and put it out there. So again I'm just a single

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person who had a vision and every one of you that are listening to this broadcast God

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given you a vision. It might be in a different area than anybody else that

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you know of. You may feel actually kind of isolated in what you do and I

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want to challenge you to get some blood-stained allies and what I mean by

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that term is have some other men and women that have a kingdom vision like

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you do and you guys start praying together. Start asking God, God what do you

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want to do at our job? What do you want us to do in our neighborhood? What do you

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want us to do to make an impact here? Because God wants safe cities. God wants

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kingdom of God cities. God wants truth cities. God wants holy cities and who's

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going to bring that? Not going to be your local Kiwanis club or Lions club. It's

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going to be people of the church who stand for the kingdom who start to step

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out. That's what a kingdom revolution is. It's stepping out and asking God to

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guide you into truth, guide you into righteousness, guide you into peace and

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joy. That's what he does. So that's the kingdom of God revolution and I want to

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continue in the next message to give a little bit more. I'm going to color this

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in these lines a little bit more about some other things that we've done that

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have had an impact in our city that you can also have the same impact in your