For Michael Neal, service was never about a title.

Long before he became a pastor or community leader, Neal was simply responding to a calling that had been shaped by his upbringing on Chicago’s South Side.

Raised in Park Manor near 67th and Wabash, he remembers a neighborhood defined by connection, accountability, and care. “We were so close-knit as children, I assumed everybody on the block was related to me,” Neal recalled. It was the kind of community where neighbors looked after one another, where adults watched over every child as if they were their own, and where the sense of collective responsibility was deeply understood. That early experience of community would later become the foundation of Neal’s life’s work.

“I didn’t think of it as leadership,” he said. “I thought of it as being a servant.”

Today, Neal serves as pastor of Glorious Light Church and continues to lead the Timothy Community Corporation (TCC), a South Side-based organization focused on literacy, health, and leadership development. Through mentorship initiatives, wellness programming, and educational outreach, the organization has spent more than a decade investing directly into the community.

And while the organization is currently navigating one of its most significant transitions to date, Neal remains grounded in the mission that first inspired its work.

Building What the Community Needed

Founded in 2012, the Timothy Community Corporation was created with a simple but powerful belief: everything needed to strengthen the community already exists within it.

The organization’s name is drawn from scripture, specifically 2 Timothy 2:2, which emphasizes passing knowledge and wisdom to others. “It reminds us that we already have the skills and talent,” Neal said. “It’s now on us to share them.” That philosophy has shaped every program the TCC has launched.

One of its earliest initiatives, South Side Fit, was developed in response to alarming health disparities across the South Side. After hearing data presented by leaders from the University of Chicago about disproportionately high rates of asthma and other health concerns, Neal felt compelled to act. The result was a free fitness initiative designed to eliminate financial barriers to health and wellness while creating measurable pathways toward better health outcomes.

“If the South Side was being described as sick, we wanted to envision it as fit,” Neal said. The organization’s literacy work grew from a similar sense of urgency. 

While operating Glorious Light Church, Neal began volunteering to read to students at local schools. What began as a simple act of service soon evolved into something much larger after he witnessed firsthand the lack of Black male representation in educational spaces.

That realization sparked what would become Leading With Literacy, a program that brings Black men into schools to read to children during their most formative years. “My goal has always been pre-K through third grade,” Neal said. “Those are foundational years.”

Over time, the impact became undeniable. Neal recalls moments when former students—some now in college—have approached him in stores or community spaces to remind him that he once read to them as children.

“It’s like a slow cooker,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t immediately see the results, but eventually you do.”

A Difficult Transition

For years, much of this work operated out of a former Chicago Public Schools building on 43rd & Drexel, a space that became a hub for programming, outreach, and community connection. The building represented more than a location—it was the physical manifestation of a vision Neal first imagined years earlier after visiting a thriving community center in Memphis.