The Tollgate
There is a price that must be paid in order to enter Heaven.
Neither you nor I have what it takes.
The richest man in the world falls short.
But God, standing inside, saw the great multitude,
and had compassion.
So He sent His son Jesus to pay the price for us.
He stands at The Tollgate and welcomes us all.
John Swanger
The Tollgate Coffee House
The Tollgate Coffee House was established to demonstrate unity within the body of Christ by reaching out to suffering people and the challenged ministries that labor along one of the longest streets in the nation.
John Swanger and Cross & Clef Ministries have been working with Denver’s homeless since 1994. Currently an estimated forty FAMILIES becoming homeless each month.
Yes, over half those nearly five hundred families hitting the streets in Denver this year will bring children to the streets with them.
Today’s Denver homeless population ranges from newborn babies of homeless youth to crippled senior citizens. The new homeless are middle class white women, minority families that have never seen anything but poverty, proud U.S. Veterans, and young people who find themselves in a street war every day. They are African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Native-American, Asian. They are Christian, Jew, Islamic, Buddhist and Atheist. Heterosexual and Homosexual. Virtually every facet of our society has been touched by homelessness and you can see it first-hand along Colfax Avenue. You may be surprised to learn that only about 20% of today’s homeless are drug/alcohol addicted.
Cross & Clef Ministries feeds hundreds of homeless people, and John Swanger is not just filling stomachs. He and his staff are developing relationships, building trust and rebuilding hope. The relationships this ministry creates are the foundation for future success – success in bringing individuals to the Lord, and success in restoring the homeless to productive lives.
The Tollgate Coffee House opened in 2000 at 4200 E. Colfax Avenue. This facility was a God inspired work that met the critical needs of the homeless that we see on a daily basis. It provided showers, laundry facilities, lockers, mailboxes and a telephone for messages for the homeless. It also offered vocational training, necessary referrals and a place for fellowship other than the sidewalks.
However the devastations of September 11th 2001 rocked our nation to the core. In addition to the obvious destruction, many small ministries were forced to close their doors. The Tollgate Coffee House was one of these.
In 2005 The Tollgate Coffee House reopened in Seattle's University District in conjunction with Scum of the Earth Church - Seattle and has been successfully absorbed into the church.
It is one of our goals to reopen The Tollgate Coffee House somewhere along East Colfax.
We wish to provide all that is necessary to bring the homeless to a point where they are
reliable and hireable.
Cross & Clef Ministries is not a homeless “maintenance” agency, but a way to restore dignity, self-confidence and self-sufficiency.