Jeff Johnsen and Frank Tillapaugh
In 1971, a young pastor named Frank Tillapaugh began challenging his church to stop referring to pastors as “ministers”—every Christian is a minister, he encouraged, and everyone should prayerfully ask whether God has a place for them on the front lines of ministry outside the walls of the church.
Convinced that suburban middle-class people needed relationships that transcend race, class, and culture, Frank pointed his congregation to the needs of the city, and especially the poor.
What had been an inward-focused congregation began reaching out to international students, street people, and refugees. Church members helped start an outreach to homeless people on east Colfax and established “shepherding homes” for addicts and young moms who wanted to leave street life. One couple from the church, Bob and Jan Williams, gave up half of their suburban medical practice to open the Inner City Health Center. Bear Valley Church became known as a suburban church with “A Heart for the City.” Frank’s book Unleashing the Church was one of the best-selling books of the 1980s on church leadership.
This week marks the 60th anniversary of Bear Valley Church, in Lakewood. Bear Valley was one of Mile High Ministries’ founding churches, over 30 years ago. Today, you can still trace a line from Bear Valley Church to some of the most beautiful faith-based efforts that are serving among the poor of our city. As I sat in the church’s anniversary celebration on Sunday, the man sitting next to me leaned over and said, “the shelter that I work for was in deep trouble financially in the 1980’s, and probably survived thanks to Bear Valley’s generosity.”
Heidi and I walked into Bear Valley Church as newlyweds in 1983. We had moved to Denver to play in a country-western band, looking to have some fun and to figure out what to do when we grew up. Nothing about the appearance of the little church on the seam between city and suburbia told us that this was the epicenter of a movement “unleashing” people to give themselves away on behalf of others. It didn’t take long for us to get caught up in the energy. We soon found ourselves, along with our friends in the band, sponsoring a refugee family from Cambodia, setting them up in a subsidized apartment block.
As word about the “church unleashed” spread, pastors from nearby churches asked how they could get involved. A handful of suburban congregations rallied around Open Door Fellowship, a small church serving the street community of Capitol Hill. They created a non-profit organization and started dreaming of ways to work together to reach the poor with the love of Christ: things such as an alternative school, a coffeehouse, backpacking trips for local kids. In 1988 the emerging movement was given a new name: Mile High Ministries.
Blessed are you, Bear Valley Church, for your legacy of seeking the peace and well-being of our city, and especially of our poorest neighbors, in Jesus’s name. And happy 60th anniversary!
Jeff Johnsen
Executive Director
