Jessica Dominguez on Mobilizing Churches for Affordable Housing

Welcome to the Future Christian podcast, your source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church into the 21st century. At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to pastors, authors and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical wisdom to help you and your community of faith walk boldly into the future. Now, here's your host, Loren Richmond, Jr. Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. Today, we're welcoming Jessica Dominguez to the show.

Jessica is a teacher faithled affordable housing development advisor and advocate. In 2019, Jessica took a leave from a 20 year career teaching public school to research affordable housing solutions and ended up helping to shape the city's housing priorities as a member of Denver's housing advisory committee. During that time, she was named one of Denver.

It's who's next in housing. She is a graduate of the Real Estate diversity Initiative through Urban Land Institute and helped lead the congregational Land campaign of the Interfaith alliance of Colorado. Currently, Jessica serves as the co director of housing development at Mile High Ministries. In this role, she provides churches with education and technical assistance through the abundant ground program, empowering them to transform underutilized land into affordable housing

solutions. Additionally, Jessica is a co owner of Love Thy Neighbor, a ah, mission driven real estate group dedicated to resisting displacement and fostering affordable housing opportunities. Her commitment to addressing housing challenges has made her a driving force in creating positive change within communities. Let's welcome Jessica to the show.

Hey, welcome to Future Christian podcast. This is Loren Richmond Jr. And I am here with Jessica Dominguez, recording live and in person after some pretty serious technological challenges. So, Jessica, thank you so much for hanging with me. Uh, we'll talk you a little bit more about where we're at and why we're recording here and all that jazz. But, uh, before we get going, anything else you'd like our listeners to know about you?

Yeah, I guess something that wasn't in the bio is that I lead the Denver classroom Teachers association affordable housing committee, and I helped start that a few years back when we were seeing the displacement of, um, students and teachers in the cool. I feel like that could be a good conversation right there in itself. Totally. There's so much schools are getting involved in the affordable housing conversation, so it's exciting. We're also here with. Who's our third guest? That won't be.

This is honey. Honey. This is, unfortunately, an audio podcast, so we may or may not hear honey, but can see her, um, share a little bit about your faith journey, if you would. What that looks like in the past, what it looks like today. Yeah, sure. Um, I grew up in a charismatic environment, so there was a lot of emphasis on the dependency of God, the bigness of God, relying on God's spirit, um, to empower you, to

speak to you. And it was really experiential, and I still rely on that a lot today. Yeah. And I think the way it has changed is that I was kind of. There's a lot of fear based stuff and very, um, introspective versus out into the world. And, um, there was a lot of separation and just fear. And I don't see life that way anymore. It's more of wonder and awe in that God is in the city and God is in nature and God is in others. And, um, I ask a

lot more questions. Where before it was like, really dogmatic and this is what you believe and, um, I have more questions now, but yet I feel closer to God than I ever have. Cool. Um, what are some spiritual practices, some spiritual disciplines that have been meaningful for you? Yeah, I, um, get really emotional when I'm in corporate worship or, um, around taking communion. And

I was thinking about that and I was wondering why. And I think it's just how symbolic, of course, communion is and that I'm, um, able to focus on the greatness of God and his sacrifice for me. And just as he said, remember me in this, um, more lately, it's around I'm feeling deep connection to my work and how God is using me at work. And, um, I just feel very missional in it and I feel God leading me and guiding, well, us.

Um, when I say us, I mean, uh, my husband and I were kind of doing this work together alongside Mile high ministries. So I feel God in my work. Um, another thing that I've been really just asking God for is to show me the preciousness of people. Because when you're doing affordable housing work, um, it's difficult, right. And you're relying so much on numbers and funding and trying to make things work, and sometimes you lose the face

of people and that importance. So I've just been asking God to show me the preciousness of people and how he loves them and how he cares for them. Um, I've just been digging into that a little bit. Well, that's good because we've talked about free recording and, uh, for our listeners here, I myself work in affordable housing and I know how easy it is to kind of get lost in the grind. Yes, the grind, the grind. I mean, that's obviously an indie job, but, um, yeah, that's so good.

I love to talk to you about, for 20, 30 minutes about communion, too. But that's not what this podcast is for today.

Um, so you mentioned kind of your work tying into your ministry. Just talk about how you got into the work and the ministry or the company that you're with today. Yeah. So, in 2018, I was teaching first graders, and I was reading a book, and it was called every. It was a science book, and it was called every living thing has a home. And I looked out into my audience of little first graders, and there was a first grader there just looking back at me, eyes

wide open, ready to learn science. And I knew she was living in the car with her family. Wow. And I began to, like God, began to speak to my heart, not audibly, but the way he moves you in your spirit and just say, what are you going to do about this? And so my husband and I just started researching everything affordable housing related. Um, and I felt like, I remember, I think it was in August, and I was getting ready, setting up my classroom, and I felt like I was supposed to take the year off

m to research this. And I called up my husband, and I said, I feel like God is asking me to do this, but I don't know. He said, you better make sure that's God. And so the funny thing is that my cousin, who's a pastor, never m calls was. And he called me that day m and he said, jessica, you were just on my mind, and I want you to know that when God speaks to you, you should listen to him. Wow. And so for a six on the enneagram, who needs security, right?

Yeah. That was kind of like propelling my faith a little bit. Wow. And so I also had another barrier, though. We were getting ready to start school, and so I went to my principal, and I said, listen, I know this is going to put you in a jam. Right? Um, because at that time, I was in a leadership position also. I was coaching other teachers, and I said, but I really feel like I'm supposed to take the year off to figure out this housing crisis that we're in.

It was also teachers, and so took that year off, um, just began to connect with the affordable housing community. Um, I don't know how this happened, but Denverite wrote an article, um, like, who's next in housing? And I wasn't really doing anything, Loren I was just out there kind of like John the Baptist preaching, like, who's doing anything about affordable housing? The way of affordable housing.

Exactly. And so they wrote about me, and, um, I got connected through that article to a dear friend, nathan, um, Davis hunt, who was leading the congregation land campaign at that time with interfaith alliance. And they were hiring a part timer, um, to help them with the churches. And so I did that for about a year. Covid hit and being the 6th that I am on the enneagram, needing that security, I went back to teaching. And um, during that time, my husband, uh, we own a company called Love thy

neighbor. And we were really focused on affordable for sale housing. And we worked with habitat for a time and other nonprofits that were providing affordable housing, um, for homeownership, which is different than market rate. Right. And so he was doing that. I was teaching, still involved with the community, but not as deeply. Right. Because I was teaching full time. Um, we decided about a year and a half ago that we, you know, is everything. We, um.

I guess we felt a little discouraged. We were just talking about how do you know when to give? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And things weren't going that well with the business and I can teach anywhere. And we thought, well, maybe God's moving us to Kansas City. That's where my husband's from. And so we went out there for the summer and just, you know, it is affordable here. We can help people here, maybe we can take what we've know. We knew a ton about deed restrictions

and we knew a little bit about development. We had gone through the ready program, through Uli, and while we were out there, Jeff Johnson, um, my boss now and long term mentor, called me and he said, hey, Jess, what do you think about starting up the congregation land campaign again and helping churches? And I said, well, I don't know, let's explore the idea. And Nathan had moved to

Boston. There was leadership changes at interfaith and we just began to, for the last year, kind of cultivate, um, the relationships again and see who's doing what and if there was really a need. Right. And so we just had that webinar, um, which was so well attended. There were, I think, about 100 faith leaders that signed up and about 60 that actually attended. Um, and so they need advicement, they need to know what their steps are. They also want to do that in

a spiritual context. And how is the Lord calling them to use their property? How is the Lord calling them to steward their land? And so you can't really know that without really knowing your options as. So, um, yeah, we've just been going at it and at the same time, my role here is co director of housing development. So I help a little bit with the development at Clara Brown Commons, where we are at now. And. Yeah, so that's how I'm here. Sorry. A lot in there. No, that's great.

Let's talk about. Real quick, let's talk about Claire Brown Commons, where we're recording right now, because you said something about the lord working, and you told me a cool story behind it. I want our audience to hear that. Yeah. So we're in the cool neighborhood, east side Denver, and, um, Jeff Johnson, our executive director at Mile High ministries, lives in this neighborhood. And for the last, I don't know, 20 years, this has been a blighted

kind of area. And Jeff would frequently walk around this area, and he would pray, and he would pray that the Lord would do something good with this land. And then he started praying, lord, if you give me this land, I will do something good with it. And it so happened that the person that owned the land, I guess I don't want to say too much about it, but it ended up being for sale. Right.

And, um, somebody on city council called Jeff and said, hey, this land that you've been praying for for 20 years is up for sale. M and Jeff was like, well, I don't know how I'm going to buy it, but step one. And he had went to a Bible study soon after that, and, um, one of his friends, uh, just of wealthy means, asked him, hey, Jeff, what are you dreaming about? And that actually provided kind of the down payment for us to get the land. And then it is a tax credit deal.

And so there was some of that. And then we raised funds as well. So it wasn't like it was just God delivered it on a silver platter. It was a struggle to get here, but it was a beautiful struggle. Um, and we just had our grand opening and celebrated, and it was just like a day long celebration that ended in praise and worship and just gratitude. Yeah, I mean, I got to tour the building. It's amazing. Um, it

really is incredible just to see this. And as beautiful as this building is, as amazing as getting all the pieces to come together, I think I want to emphasize that story of him praying for 20 years. Um, and maybe, if anything, to emphasize, as I'm m sure you'd agree, the importance of just committing prayer and discernment when it comes around anything, but especially building and land usage. Right. For churches. Right. Because it's one of our greatest assets that we have.

And, um, you just recently had Mark Elston on, and once it's gone, it's gone. And so, yeah, prayer and action as well. Just not even that. You have to do something right away. But get the education, get a team of advisors around you who can help guide you and help answer your questions and help discern with you. Um, and I find that it's layered, right? There's just different layers of discernment and, um, that involves technical questions that the church has.

Like does the zoning allow for this? How much do these buildings cost? What kind of partnerships do we want? Um, how are these buildings paid for? And, um, a good advisor will help you with all of that. Yeah, so we've just been talking spiritual and I do want to kind of get into the nitty gritty because obviously, as much as I think it's important to pray and discern around these things, if anything, I want to learn from you so our audience can be along for the ride here.

Um, let's talk about, I'm thinking of a church up in the neck of the woods where I live. Right. Been around since I think the 80s, have a big, huge plot of land behind them. Um, so let's just imagine, right? Mhm. That this church comes to you. It's like, hey, we'd love to develop this land for some kind of affordable housing. What are the first questions or steps that you're giving them?

Well, the first part of it is the discernment, right. You come with prayer, you come with a group from your church that can help you make these decisions. You begin to look outward and say, who is God calling us to serve? Um, what does this neighborhood need? Who is God calling us to be in this instance? Because there is a

range of how a church can be involved. Right? You see, churches that have developed themselves are running their building, but then you have churches that had somebody else develop their building, but then they're running it and managing it. So there's a lot of what ifs in it, and it's just going along the discernment path and asking these questions, um, until you find that right fit and where you feel like, okay, this feels right, we're comfortable with this.

So in the webinar, and we'll have to put a link for the webinar in the show notes because you recorded, right? I did. Okay, perfect. Um, can I say something about that? Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so this is so cool. Um, well, I think it's cool. I don't know if you will. Um, so my husband was helping me because he's an it guy and it was kind of my first big webinar and he forgot to press record. Ah.

Right away. But the part that he pressed record on it was when Mark Elston said, right at the moment, Mark said, God is not in decline. M and to me, I was just like, that was a message for me, because when we talk about the housing crisis, sometimes it feels so big and it feels like, lord, can we even do anything about this? And so I almost felt like, hey, maybe God was giving us m. A message right there. Yeah. So you'll hear it, though.

Yeah. Um, so let's give some examples, because I think that was interesting for me just in the webinar, just to see in here. So give, like, three or four examples that you gave from the webinar. For instance, what are churches are doing? Because I was surprised to see the kind of vast array of what different churches are doing. Yeah. So Lutheran Church of hope in Broomfield, anchor house, they're, um, servicing former foster youth, and they actually took

on the management piece of that. Um, and also in the resources that I send from the webinar, it has links to their story, and it's just beautiful. Uh, made me cry. Um, solid rock in Colorado Springs, pastor, um, Ben did a litech deal. Um, Augustana Lutheran, they're doing affordable home ownership. Agape was on the webinar. Um, they did permanent, um, supportive housing for those coming out of, um. What's that? Agape church, charity house. Charity house, yeah.

Okay. Um, and then heart of the Rockies, you had pastor Melissa st. Clair on there, um, in Fort Collins. And I have an ongoing list of that. But, um, yeah. Watching the webinar will give you a little more details on that. Yeah, this is good. This is good. M so, for my own curiosity, and hopefully this will be relevant to our listeners, I'm thinking about what does it involve as far as the land, the nitty gritty of the land. I've heard a lot about 99 year leases type things. Totally.

Uh, is it transferring land? Which I imagine, obviously, it sounds like for the one lutheran church, it sounds like they have control still over everything. Yeah. And a lot of it comes down to denominational, uh, governance and what they all allow you to do. So you do see some land leases. You see some, um, churches maybe selling a portion of the land to help leverage, um, building on another portion. Okay. You see help with the financing. You see, um, some cases where the land is donated.

Um. You see some cases where the church decides to develop themselves. You see a copartnership. Um, it just depends on what the finances of the church, how much risk the church is willing to take on how much capacity they have to enter into some kind of development and yeah, it just becomes a point of

negotiation, really. Um, what we do is, well, what we've done in the past is we write a request for proposals, um, based on what the church needs, what the church wants, and we send that out to um, mission and aligned developers. And then the church can kind of see what's on the table for them and they begin to negotiate what's best for them.

Okay, so I'm curious, are these always instances where it's like low income ami area meeting income type housing, or are there situations where it's like a church is like, hey, we want to just develop our land to have some kind of revenue stream. Is that even a possibility? I think that is totally a possibility. And I think something else, even though what we're focused on. Right. I think it's not an either or. It

could be an and. Sure, maybe they can do half and half to um, offset whatever they need. Right. Um, I think that could be a possibility. Um, when you're thinking about affordable housing though, um, you're thinking the zero to 80% ami right area mediation. Um, that's where most of the funding is going to be coming from. So if you're thinking something beyond that, you're going to have to either come with that or fund. Let's talk about a loan.

Let's talk about funding here. Uh, because you used the. Litech, uh-huh. Low income housing tax credit. Right. So um, I'm just learning about that a little bit myself in my context of work. Share a little bit about that for our listeners and how so tax credits. Are given for affordable housing. Um, it's an application. Mhm. Uh, a lot of people apply and so usually, um, you have to have some type of experience to apply or go in with somebody that has the experience, um, doing this deal.

Um, Claire Brown Commons, we had a lot of help with, um, very experienced developers, very experienced consultants. Um, but yeah, um, it's an application through chafa. And just again, for context, the company that I work for, a housing authority, put in an application for one of these loan housing tax credits and didn't get it. Yeah, there's only so much money in the pot to go around and it. Does cost to put in the application, right. Um, yeah, it's going to cost you something.

Now in my work context, the housing authority does have a loan basically for some chunk of the money they have equity. They're uh-huh. I mean, how much equity does a church need to have? Again, that is going to depend on what they're building and what they want to do. Um, if you're building like boring right now, 60 some units, you're probably going to need to bring a good chunk of equity. But like with the lutheran church in.

Broomfield, I think the pre development costs, um, if you would do something on your own, could range from 50 to 100,000. But um, if you go through something like abundant ground, we help offset that because we're working with technical, um, experts that have agreed to give the church a discount. So I don't want the church to worry about that. But we just don't enter. Let's give you technical. Yeah, it's not Willy nilly for sure. Some discernment and prayer.

Right. Because we're putting a lot of skin in the game for it and uh, we want you to have some skin in the game as well. Trying to think of, I feel like there's so many questions here, um, you don't want to get like worst case scenario, but where would you advise against the church doing this? I can imagine. Obviously if a church is, like we said, willy nilly, haven't really spent some time in prayer, don't have buy in from the congregation leadership. Uh, what are some other. We appreciate

your heart. This is not going to work. I think if they're in a real financial crisis themselves, we don't want them to make a decision based out of kind of fear. Um, so we would advise against that. And we see that happen mostly when churches have waited too long to get some kind of counsel around this. And there have been times where we might say it just might be better to sell and pay off your debt. Um, but that would be like the last option if we.

Oh, and something else I didn't. So, uh, churches are doing social enterprise out of there. There were churches that I have talked to that they're doing affordable housing and these small business startups, which is beautiful. So they're doing like a housing project on the land and then they're using some of their existing space. So there's really a lot of, there's so many options.

And that's why I think discernment is also about creativity and looking at the needs of your community and what is your community asking you for. And a lot of churches are helping with ece, um, food deserts, um, grocery stores.

Uh, yeah. Ah, because uh, I did an MBA a couple of years ago and one of the first projects I had to do was like a big research report and obviously my data wasn't scientific per se, for instance, because I kind of be like, hey, fill out my survey about how much you need early childhood support. But you think about the costs. From my recollection, the biggest drivers of costs are going to be overhead and staffing. Ah, you obviously can't control staffing. Mhm.

People cost what they cost. You got to have the ratios right. But with the church, you can control overhead. You're not paying rent necessarily. Or if you are, however that's arranged, that can be severely discounted, I imagine, for a church. Exactly. And it's about partnerships, if you look at our list out here, of the people we partnered with, because you can't do this alone. Right. And so something that I feel like is a theme that I'm seeing is like this idea of

intersectionality and partnership. How can you partner with the government, or how can you partner with somebody that is an expert at running an ECE or running a business? So, um, the church doesn't have to necessarily be an expert at it. They just have to be willing to ask the right questions and willing to open up to partnerships. Let's go down this. So you work doing this work we, uh, talked about before we started recording. It sounds like you come from a nondenominational background.

Right. So I come primarily from mainline protestant world, very denominational. These kind of denominations can be very siloed. If you've seen that. I don't know if you've seen that. So maybe what are some examples you've seen? And then can you give some kind of like, gumption, maybe. I don't know what needs to be said, but to get outside kind of your bubble and encourage people to say, hey, you might need to look beyond your own circles.

No, that is interesting, because being in this work, I am out all the time. Right. I'm seeing who's doing what, beautiful work everywhere. And I recently went to a church, and this pastor, uh, is considering kind of social enterprise stuff and kind, um, of a healthy, thriving church. And I said, well, what are the needs of your community? And he really couldn't answer that. And so that was kind of interesting to

me. Um, but that's something that we can help you with, because part of this, like Jeff Johnson, our executive director, he had to do community engagement. That's part of the requirement. And city, um, council, actually, or maybe it was planning board, I can't remember, just gave him kudos around his community engagement, his planning, how he was getting the input from neighbors. And so we help churches with that as well.

Yeah, I guess that goes back to, again, the importance of really laying the groundwork in prayer and discernment and leadership, because it's not just going to be like the pastor or a couple of people being like, oh, we should go after. Let's talk to a developer and tomorrow. Right, right. For sure. You need a team around you. You need, um, a little bit of capacity in terms of time and energy that you're going to put into this

because it takes some thought. We help you. Um, we help guide you, but you're going to have to make time for meetings with us and to go through your options and, um, talk about some of those technical.

Let's talk about time then. What should a church think about? Yeah. So I'll give you the actual building here. Took about a year to build. Right. But to get permits and everything else, I think we're looking more at two to three years. Um, but then you add on this discernment piece, we've seen five to six years. Right. Um, frankly, I think that's pretty quick. Right? Yeah. And we've seen even longer. So it just

depends on. And we're never about rushing the church or putting any kind of pressure on the church, um, because we want God to lead them. But, yeah, a lot of that time is the discernment piece and getting everyone on board. Because even if we go back to heart of the Rockies. Right. Um, they first got interested, I think if I'm remembering back in like five. Six, maybe 2018, I think, because I actually went up there when I was part of the Congregation, um, land campaign.

So this current iteration, maybe. Yeah. But they could have been talking about it even before then. Right. And then they're breaking ground now. I think they had a different idea about M. That's a good point about a good framework for listeners. Like, think about 2018, 2019. So here what, mhm, February 2024, as we're recording this, six ish years in what it'll probably be another year before it's done. So it seems like seven years is a good kind of

mental concept. Mental framework, I think, to think about. Right. Is that fair? Yeah. So I, uh, can imagine. And this is one of the things I talked to mark about. There may come a point where a church, they've got like ten people left. It may be like, thank you for your. Have you encountered such a situation where you go into a church and there's like 1015 people, and it's obvious to you they're not going to have the resources to do it themselves?

What do you think is the best, most faithful attack for them. I have seen that. And because I don't want to put pressure. Yeah. I think the one that I'm thinking of, they're just going to end up selling to the market. We might write an RFP to see if requests, uh, for proposals to see if any affordable housing developers might be willing to partner with them. Um, but I think, like we said before, if we wait, it puts us, um, in a precarious spot that maybe we don't make the best.

I mean, I imagine, like me, it seems like in the Denver metro, any housing going up is probably a good thing. Net good. Right. But if you're really passionate about providing affordable housing. Yeah, I think we do need to build. For sure. We need to build across the spectrum. We need way more lower. Ami need any more, like multimillion dollar? But there's also the policy piece around it, um, that I think is

interesting. And Phil, uh, burns from out in California talked about SB four out there that, uh, they did a religious overlay for churches that are going to build affordable housing so that they don't have to go through the rezoning process, which will save thousands of dollars and months of time. And so if we could get something like that, that would help. Right. Um, but I do think we

need to. Yes, housing in general, but especially for, um, I would even say zero to 120% ami, because what I'm seeing is I'm going into these churches. The pastors have this land, and then at the end, they kind of come to me and say, hey, do you think I don't own a home? But they're like, at 81% ami. And so they can't get into the affordable housing market, and they can't buy market rates. So I think now we have the middle income housing

authority. I'm, um, wondering about that. I'm wondering how, um, there might be a land trust that, um, from 80% to 100% ami. So I think it's all about creativity and getting the right minds in, um, the room and just trying it. Let's see. Would this work? I'm glad you brought up the policy side, because I can imagine a scenario where a church might, let's say they got a tiny chunk of land, they got a building. They can't really do anything.

There's no land, real assets to do anything with. But they may want to advocate for. Uh, so, obviously, we're within Colorado, and that's probably what you're most familiar with. You mentioned California, though, for. But so what are some examples maybe that are happening locally, nationally that churches, uh, could advocate for. Yeah, I would really look into the Sb four. We talk a little bit about that on the webinar. Um, in the resources that I sent out for the webinar, I just

have a ton of links about that. Um, there's this whole conversation happening at the state level around zoning, uh, and I think getting involved in that. I do have churches that, um, and I haven't been able to focus too much on that, that they're like, we don't have land, but we care about housing. Right. So we're going to have an event on March 6, going to be a, ah, learning lunch, and we're going to talk a little bit about some housing policy stuff that's happening

here. Um, and we're also going to talk to some faith centered developers. And, um, we're going to tour this beautiful building. So look out for that. So now I'm, like, pressured. Is this going to release by March 6? Okay, if you're listening to this. Oh, yeah, march 6. Check this out. Where can they find out more about. That if it's not, um, what we got? Oh, mile high ministries. It's February 7, so hopefully I'll get this turned. I'm sorry. I just put pressure on you.

The pressure editor, though. Oh, sorry, editor? Yeah. Um, go to mile high ministries, or you can email me. You have all my social media links and my email, but, um, my email is Jessica Dominguez at mileheimin m I n.org and Dominguez with a z. Okay. Um, let me ask you this question before we take a break, and this is a question I asked mark. You know, what is your nightmare scenario? Oh, my gosh. When I'm in a not great mental framework, can you just think ten years ahead and

see? I don't want there to be another m marijuana church for listeners. There literally exists a marijuana church, and no judgment there. But I'd rather see better usage of church space. I, frankly want there to be churches still existing. Um, I also watch youtubers who may not be religious themselves, and they lament historic churches getting torn down. So what do you see as, like, a worst case scenario? What's your kind of dream and prayer scenario?

Uh, I think my worst case scenario goes back to teaching, because I taught for 23 years. I still teach part time. Um, and I look at those little baby faces out there, and they don't know what's going on. Um, but they're also housing insecure. Um, we have a lot of, um, migrant students, newcomers, and I've seen kids walking into tents, and I guess we're kind of at a nightmare situation. I've never seen that in Colorado in.

So the only thing that could really make this nightmare worse is if God does not intervene. And he has to intervene through his church and through the body. And, um, I can't do it alone. I need you. I need others that are feeling called to this mission. And, yeah, I think to do other celebrations like this. Right. That we had at Claire Brown. I wish you could have seen it. I mean, this building was just filled. We wrote this beautiful book, and we celebrated with praise and worship. And I

cried. I just was like, man, God, thank you. It was very difficult. There were times, um, I was actually on the board before I started working with mile high. Um, there were times where Jeff would come to the board and know, he would tell us, hey, this came up, um, and it was a big problem, and we'd have to wrap our brains around it. And every adversity, we overcame every adversity. And, um, this isn't going to be easy work, um, but we need to. Let's go get it. Yeah. I'm just thinking about

something. This past Sunday, I was in church, and the pastor spoke about Ezekiel and the dry bones. And I know that really resonated with me, just kind of where I'm at right now in my know. And I've been thinking about. I think it's Henry now, and a quote about hope. Christian hope is not like just some optimism about the future. It's this hope of what God has said, God will do, God will do.

And then we look at stories. That's, to me, why scripture is so important, because we can go back when we're feeling unhopeful. Yes. And go back and see there's a story of God doing what? Preach it, Loren and testimony. Yeah. I was recently talking to, um, a dear friend, Scott. And we talk, know how just overwhelming. We hear these stories of brokenness, and he said, jessica, you have to have hope as resistance, because if you have no hope, oh, my

gosh, where do you go from there? It's so tied into faith. Right. And we need those. That's another thing that I miss, um, that I don't really see so much in churches anymore. Giving testimony and the power of testimony and the power. We're having a little revival right here in the Bible. Come on. I mean, that story about Jeff going around this building for 20 years, that's a testimony. That's, uh, a testimony to God's faithfulness. And to the endurance that he gives

us as saints. And that can only be the work of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we're getting totally off. Sorry. This is fine. No, this is fine. This is what I love doing. But I'm thinking, like, I grew up independent Baptist and independent Baptist, we're very straight. We're like lander than these white walls. Right. But that was a thing that would happen occasionally where there'd be like a song and testimony night. Yeah. Um, and I imagine it was probably

less rigid. Right. In your context, there'd be some testimony. Yeah, testimony. The pastor would stand up there and say, does anybody have a testimony? And they go up and it was really moving. Yeah. Folks, uh, go back and watch this webinar, because in some ways it's testimony. It is to what people, the ways people have responded to God's leading in their church life, in their neighborhood and what God has done. Yes, for sure. And stay tuned. More coming. Yeah, we have four learning lunches a

year. Um, we're going to start a discovery cohort, which will be eight to ten churches that kind of want to build their capacity around learning affordable housing development. And we're going to be taking some field trips to different churches. Um, that's great. Well, let's move on to our closing questions here. I usually do it a break, but I'm scared to break anything because, please, I'm okay. I don't need a break.

Okay. So closing questions, I always tell folks, you can take these as seriously or not as you'd like to, and again, interpret them to your context, uh, however you see best. So if you're pope for a day. Mhm. What do you want to do with that day? Okay, so I've heard a lot of people talking and their answers are answering this question. They're so noble. Right. I'm going to take it on a little bit of a weird. So I think I heard it on your podcast about Christianity today. Did a

section on our obsession with horror. Do you remember talking about that? So that led me down the little rabbit hole of listening to that podcast. It's kind of freaky, wasn't it? It was. Which led me to the exorcist files and Father Martin, who is, uh, so, um, it's actually fascinating because he brings a lot of science into it and mental health, but he also talks about scripture and he's done this for 40 years. So if I was pope for the day, um, I might attend their annual exorcism course.

Whoa. I'm curious. Okay. And I've gained a new respect. I didn't grow up, ah, catholic at all. Um, and I just really am intrigued by their doctrine and appreciate their. Yeah, I'm going to have a catholic on the show, and I need to work on that because this is a very ecumenical podcast. Maybe. Father Martin. Yeah. Um, what's my next question? Because we're so haphazard, David, I don't even have my notes. I'm sorry. Um, what?

Theological. Yes. What's a theological figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life? Okay. So I think I'm going to change that a little bit. I would love to go back to the feeding of the 5000. Okay. Because I felt like when Jesus, they came to Jesus, right, the disciples, and said, these people are hungry. We should send them home. Right. M. And Jesus says, no, you feed them. Yeah. I felt like that was the moment when I talked earlier in the podcast when God was telling me, what are you going

to do about affordable housing? And I feel like God is asking us to enter in and it seems so vast and so big that we're like, uh, I don't think we can do this. Let's just send everybody home. But God is saying, well, what do you. Someone else's problem. Somebody else's problem. And the question we should be asking is, like, what do we have? And, um, that collectively we bring our resources together, and collectively we bring that knowledge together.

And collectively we work with government and other nonprofits and we're able to create something beautiful and have abundance. Yeah. Want to share so much about that story, but let's keep going. Um, what's my next question? Um, I don't know. I feel like we've kind of answered, um. Well, let's say this. What do you hope for the future of Christianity? Yeah, I would hope that we would just take this moment of time, this crisis, and somehow turn it around,

right. Into something praiseworthy and into something good for people and good for the community, that when people look back at this time in history, we've done something like when we built hospitals or built schools, um, we don't run from the cris. Yeah. Let's look at an example, because certainly we could think back like, there's so many hospitals across the United States came from the religious tradition scriptural in there, right? Yeah.

Well, share how people can. You've kind of already done it, but share again how people can connect with you and learn more about mile high ministries. Sure. They can go to abundantground.com. They can email me at jessica dominguez@malheimin.org they can look, um, for the links at the bottom of this podcast. And yeah, I'm happy just to have a real informal chat with you and let you learn more. Great. Well, thanks so much for hanging with

me. This has been an adventure this afternoon, but we got it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, always leave folks with Lord peace. So we're going to do peace pass. The peace in person. May God peace be with you. And also with you. Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian podcast. To learn more about Loren or the podcast, visit future christian.com. One more thing before you go, do us a favor and subscribe to the podcast. And if you're feeling especially

generous, leave a review. It really helps us get the word out to more people about the podcast. The Future Christian podcast is production of torn curtain arts and resonate media. Our episodes were mixed by Danny Burton and the production support is provided by Paul Romiglovitt. Thanks and go in peace.