“Justice is what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is what love feels like in private.”

– Cornell West

This is an important time for us to express that Mile High Ministries stands with movements toward racial justice in our city, as well as across our nation and around the world. The struggle for justice is integral to our daily work of “building people and communities.”

Though we have engaged this struggle for over three decades, our time of national turmoil regarding anti-Black racism is an opportune moment for self-examination and redoubled dedication. This past Tuesday morning we held sacred space on a staff Zoom call for lament. Emotions were raw. We cared for each other, in part by resisting any urge to sugar-coat or soothe.

Racial wounds are not “out there” someplace. They are within us, individually and as an organization. They are carried every day by our Joshua Station families and our Justice and Mercy Legal Aid Center clients. They are carried unevenly among our staff – some of whom benefit from social inequities and some of whom suffer. We have a long, long way to grow.

Our mission is to seek God’s peace for our city through the creative, compassionate, and prayerful development of people and communities. Each of our programs addressing poverty are necessary, in no small part, because of systemic racism that has been woven into the fabric of our society from the start of our nation until now.

At Mile High Ministries, we feel that our most important critique of the system – our prophetic witness – is “the practice of something better.” Something better for housing equity. Something better for community formation. Something better for access to resources such as legal aid, education, employment, and mental health services. Those actions will speak louder than any words.

“Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” In this case, though any words we can offer will be inadequate, we will lean on the necessary words of Jesus to address this historic time:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

In Christ,

Jeff Johnsen, Executive Director

Amy Jackson, Deputy Director

Danielle Shoots, Board President

Jazmin Lopez, Board Vice-President