Denver’s housing situation is at a breaking point for families on the edge. We are on a mission to build safe and compassionate residential communities that promote healing and belonging for families rebuilding from homelessness. As we now undertake some big expansion, it is good to reflect more deeply on the “how and why” of our efforts.

So many of us, even across lines that divide us these days, long for peace. Over the years, we at Mile High Ministries have come to embrace our work of community development as a form of peacemaking. We undertake peacemaking not merely to resolve conflict, but to create space for justice, wholeness, and flourishing. It is the scriptural vision of “shalom.”

Peacemaking really is work. This work requires skill, analysis, resources, hope, and an eye steadied on the long horizon. For Mile High Ministries, peacemaking blends pragmatic programming with spiritual practices that cultivate lives of generosity, peace, and self-emptying love. This is how we have learned to love our neighbors, follow Jesus, and express God’s love for our community.

In her latest letter from the brilliant “On Being Project,” Krista Tippett suggests that our sense of calling—how we orient our attention and passions—adapts to different stages in a person’s life. Likewise it may also be that collective callings emerge in different seasons in the life of a community. For such a time as this (Esther 4:14) we “begin to walk, each with our own offering, towards a new kind of wholeness in our life together.” 

Reflecting on the experience of 2020 and the deep tensions present in 2021, Krista continues: “Some of us—many of us—are called right now primarily to get safe and fed and warm, and to keep those we love safe and fed and warm. Some of us are called to place our bodies between other bodies and danger. Some of us are called to be bridge people, staking out the vast ground at the heart of our life together where there is meaningful difference but no desire for animosity. And some of us are called to be calmers of fear. This calling is so tender, and so urgent, if what we truly want is to coax our own best selves, and the best selves of others, into the light.”

In these words, I see much of what Mile High Ministries aspires to be. Actually I see a lot of you—people who I know are responding to these kinds of callings. We’re grateful to be walking with you, “each with our own offering,” as we embrace this year’s opportunities to walk in light and love.

Our offering at Mile High Ministries will continue to include supportive housing for about 30 families at Joshua Station, which includes the ongoing challenge of keeping our residents both safe and connected. A big part of our energy will be on preparations to build a new home for nearly 80 more families at Clara Brown Commons, with ground-breaking planned for a year from now!

At the center of the wheel of all this pragmatic activity is the twenty minutes each morning when our staff gathers to check in, pray, and then sit silently to listen together for the still, small voice of God to shape our lives and direct our efforts.

As always, we’re inexpressibly grateful to you for your part in this good life. Your generosity and encouragement are a big part of what coaxes the best of Mile High Ministries into the light.

Peace in Christ,

Jeff Johnsen