About Mile High Ministries

History

Mile High Ministries was founded in 1988 as a collaborative effort between ten churches across denominational, cultural and economic lines. It was formed in response to the needs of two types of faith communities: urban churches, who needed partners to help them serve the poor in their neighborhoods; and suburban churches, who needed venues in which stereotypes of the city and the shortcomings of their own worldview could be challenged by people from other communities. Beginning as a fellowship of leaders, Mile High Ministries has built relationships among diverse churches and people through networking groups, teaching programs and outreach efforts.

Mission

Mile High Ministries invites and equips people from all walks of life to join God’s transforming work on the margins of their communities.

Vision

In neighborhoods all across our city, servant leaders are building pathways for rich and poor alike to contribute to the vitality of their communities. Beginning with the felt-needs of people struggling with poverty, these faith-driven leaders serve as catalysts of holistic transformation.

Values

We are followers of Jesus from a variety of traditions.

We value holistic transformation – spiritual, social, economic – of both people and places.

Our place is the city: we value the city, both our own great city (Denver), and the larger reality of an urbanizing, globally-connected world.

We affirm that every person, created in the image of God, has something worthwhile to contribute to the greater good. God’s transforming work is a reciprocal process and a shared journey. We delight in blurring the lines between those who give and those who receive.

We value relationships, especially those that cross barriers of culture, ethnicity, economics and religious tradition. We value partnerships and collaboration, including with those whose worldviews may differ from ours, not only for strategic reasons but because collaboration contributes to the greater good of a healthy community.

We are continually astonished by the depth of wisdom, goodness and grace at the bottom and edges of society, and in places of great pain.

We value servant-leadership, expressed through lifestyles of generosity, peace, and self-emptying love.

We are convinced that the best form of social criticism is the creative practice of something better.

Activities

For more than twenty years MHM has put these values into action through transitional housing, legal aid, economic development, training leaders, and other community endeavors. We began our journey mostly as suburban folks with a heart for the urban poor. Over the years we’ve become urban folks, deeply connected to our neighborhoods in the heart of the city. Coming full circle, we increasingly help communities all across the metro area see and serve the growing numbers of poor and marginalized people within their own neighborhoods.