Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez

Pricelis Perreaux-Dominguez is a Bible teacher, women’s coach and author with a heart for telling the truth and making space for people in the body of Christ. What gets her excited day in and day out is helping believers live out their God-given calling to be holy and spiritually healthy. For her, that means becoming a sacred, soft and safe sanctuary for others like Jesus is for us. She helps Christians do just that in her new book, “Being a Sanctuary,” as well as through her Full Collective ministry, annual Sowers Summit conference and “Being a Sanctuary” podcast. In this conversation with Pricelis, she’s getting real about her enemies-to-friends relationship with cooking, her daily struggle with patience and her go-to methods for hearing from God. Come and discover the Bible study tools she leans on regularly and the journaling exercise that’s carried her through life’s difficult seasons.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

For a long time, I tried to prove that there’s beauty in what people find to be bland or bad. But I’ve given up that fight, and instead, I spend my days enjoying the beauty of my beloved Bronx. In my neighborhood, there’s a local restaurant that’s fairly new, but I’ve known the founders of it longer — ever since they had another restaurant that was my local favorite. Unfortunately, the pandemic impacted that prior restaurant. But they persevered, and their perseverance created something beautiful.

Tucked in the northwest part of the Bronx, you can find a restaurant called Tobala that serves you a plate of delicious lamb tacos or an octopus mixed in a Mexican sauce that’ll make your heart smile. I love to go and greet Eli, the female owner, upon entering this creatively and traditionally decorated restaurant that finds intentionality behind every chair, table, item on the menu, person hired, mezcal selected and authentic smile shared.

“Tobala” is actually a plant in the agave family — so that’s already a reason for me to go since I’m a plant girlie (I have 21 plants at home). Just this year, I had the thought of celebrating my dad’s birthday (he passed away 23 years ago), and Tobala is immediately the place I thought of going to with my mom, son and husband. As we sat around the table and honored my dad, I couldn’t help but think, This would be his go-to spot too.

food from the Dominican Republic — Keesha's Kitchen; Unsplash

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also help you find essential spiritual renewal?

I love to cook. I remember my days growing up sitting in the kitchen watching my mom make magic. At first, I wasn’t there by choice. (In my culture, girls are traditionally the ones in the kitchen early on so they can learn how to cook.) But what was traditional soon became a love for a craft, an art, a way of creating that was spiritual and also simple to me.

While growing up, I didn’t feel I had any particular talents like those around me. I would grow up to learn that I have many gifts and talents, but perhaps ones that my schools didn’t highlight back then. As an adult, I use many of my gifts and talents for profit or something relating to work — but not cooking. Cooking is my oasis of creativity, where I’m not producing for anyone but instead getting to think about how things come together to produce rainbows of flavors, experiences and colors.

I was taught to cook Dominican food because that’s what my mom knew, but when I became an adult, I became interested in different cuisines. Every time I traveled, I tried to take a cooking class.

I’ve found that this interest has also led me to see the beauty and purpose in the smallest of ingredients. So maybe cooking didn’t start off spiritual, but I soon connected recipes to how God forms the body of Christ and the many purposes we each hold.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

Sometimes I think I don’t live in the right time in history because I have a deep problem with being impatient in a world of instant gratification. This leads me to cling to things that will give me rapid results or that will be done quickly. But the truth is that it’s just not good for me.

There’s a reason one of the fruits of the Spirit is patience — it’s not necessarily natural in us. I find it interesting that out of all the character qualities God could have considered as fruit, patience is one of the nine he picked.

Living in New York City also doesn’t help me grow in patience, but I married the right person because my husband is slower than me. He has helped me slow down, and slowing down has helped me grow in patience. But it’s still a huge weakness that I find keeps me stuck, angry, frustrated or disappointed and can even affect my faith or patience with God and how he may or may not be moving.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

What I’m doing — and have been doing for a few years now — is searching for truths, tools and good theology to help the body of Christ be healthy and holy. By “healthy,” I’m not necessarily referring to being fit physically (although that is important) but rather to being a Bible-based, trauma-informed and justice-centered Christian who contributes to the church and world instead of just consuming or critiquing it. And by “holy,” I mean being like Jesus. Throughout his Word, he invites us to “be holy as I am holy” (see 1 Peter 1:16). What Jesus is really saying is, “Be like me,” that is, compassionate, loving, a peacemaker, just, humble, gentle and an advocate.

After exploring these topics for a few years, I wrote a book that guides Christians on a grace-filled but also uncomfortable journey of reflecting on their place within the body of Christ, what they’ve allowed to perpetuate within the church and the power they have to help restore things. In the book, I also invite readers to reflect on the church as a whole and how to collectively walk toward flourishing. “Being a Sanctuary: The Radical Way for the Body of Christ to Be Sacred, Soft, and Safe” is a journey, teaching and invitation to explore ancient truths that will lead us to make the Christian faith a sanctuary for many and not just some.

With that, I also lead a ministry called Full Collective and host an annual conference called the Sowers Summit in New York City, where I do similar work in helping the body of Christ be healthy and holy for the glory of God, local impact and internal freedom. The church is in a crisis, and collectively, we can get out of it and walk toward flourishing.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

I have always thought that to know something is of God is to see the fruit. This connects to my earlier point on patience. I used to want to get signs from God and immediately confirm and know it was him — but it often doesn’t work that way. My example is one of learning how a “no” from God isn’t something I need to stress about.

About two years ago, I was planning my first Sowers Summit event and was set on a particular venue. It all felt like it was falling into place and then the venue ghosted me and their responses became shady and short. So I decided to change the location, but in changing my location, I ended up having to change the date of the conference. That all turned out to be convenient in the end because something else was happening in New York City during the original weekend I wanted to do my conference, which would have been a great inconvenience.

God knew that, but I didn’t see the fruit of the “no” when I first got it. Instead, I saw rejection and God being unkind while I was being faithful. Yet it all worked out because he’s not unkind; I’m just impatient and don’t see the full picture of what he sees. In the work I do, especially as a CEO, I’m learning that I constantly need to exercise flexibility because God may have something else in mind. I just need to be open to that.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

In the middle of 2019, I was in a hard place emotionally. I was leaving a job at a church and there was a lot going on in my personal life. In the middle of all of that, I, for some reason, remembered this spiritual practice someone had shared with me of writing my praises to God for each month. I made my own version of that, which I call “Notice God’s goodness.” This practice includes writing out praise reports of what I saw God do in my life, in the lives of those I love and around the world in a designated journal.

The goal isn’t simply to write five or 10 things. Instead, I write the amount of the things based on the number of days in that month. So if it’s May, I write down 31 things. I have a journal where I’ve been writing down these praise reports at the end of each month, and I’ve shared about it on social media. As a result, others have begun this spiritual practice too.

Writing out my praise reports has truly transformed my heart and taught me gratitude and perspective. I’ve gone through some pretty dark things in the past few years, so when I see my hope dwindling and despair knocking, one of my go-to practices is going back to my journal and remembering what God has done.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

I grew up going to church but left the faith when I was 17 years old because I had a lot of questions and no one around me was willing to answer them. I stopped believing in Jesus, the Bible and the church. When I returned to the faith at 23 years old, I began a really emotional journey with God because I had a lot to heal from. But when I was about 28 or 29, I began to realize there’s more to Jesus than how he can heal me, and there’s more to the Bible than how encouraging it can be.

So I went on a journey to learn more. Although that journey has opened a whole new can of worms and problems, I have found some resources that gently teach me and also give me confidence in what I believe. The first one is the Every Woman a Theologian ministry and its leader, Phylicia Masonheimer. We are now friends, but when I first heard of her and her ministry, it was all the things I was looking for — teaching Christians what they believe and why they believe it. That ministry has been a godsend.

The second resource is the Bible Project. I have a learning disability where I struggle even to read the Bible sometimes or understand certain concepts. I’m also a visual learner, so the Bible Project’s videos have truly changed the game for me, and now I’ve moved on to their podcast, which I really love.

Thirdly, the Perrys’ ministry. Although I don’t consider myself an apologetics expert, I’m deeply interested in why others believe what they believe and learning how to engage them with the gospel. Preston Perry’s videos have taught me a lot about how to do that. Jackie Hill Perry’s books and sermons have also been pivotal for my theological and biblical growth as she teaches on topics that I wrestled to understand for a long time. These ministries and people have poured into me in more ways than they may realize, and I’m grateful to exist at the same time as them.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

Audible! I’m a reader, and last year, I found myself buying books I was interested in and then putting them on the shelf and never getting to them because I was already reading seven other books. I used to be so anti-Audible, and I can’t even tell you the reasons because they are all ridiculous to me now that I use Audible consistently.

I’m a busy wife, CEO, mama, daughter, sister, friend, minister, writer, advocate and more, so I’m doing many things on any given day. Although I still love to read print books, I have found that I can read more by listening to Audible throughout the day. I also listen to podcasts throughout the day, but I have more book lists than podcast lists. And as a New Yorker who takes the train, I’ve never really liked reading on the train because it means I can’t look up and be aware of my surroundings. I love New York City and have lived here all my life, but the train has always been a wild place, so I try to be fully present and pay attention to my surroundings while I’m on it. Using Audible lets me do that while I’m on the train.

There’s also something kind of cool and special about hearing the voice of an author reading their own book to you. Not all books are recorded by the author, but many are, and that’s something cool to experience too.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

I’m currently in seminary for a master’s degree in biblical and theological studies, but before that, I got my master’s in social work and worked in that field for 10 years. I have been feeling a stirring of God lately, as if he wants me to bring that education more to the forefront of the work I do. It already shows up in the work I currently do — such as teaching, talking and writing about justice work — but I find that social work education and application can be a powerful resource for the church, so I’m (somewhat) patiently waiting to see where God leads me with that. I think the start of that shift was my book, “Being a Sanctuary.” We’ll see where it goes from here.

What does it mean to be a sanctuary for someone? In the Bible, the term “sanctuary” is used to describe a holy place set apart for the worship of God (such as the temple or tabernacle) or a refuge from hostile spiritual or human forces.

For example, when God sent the people of Israel into exile for their sin, he described his presence with them and compassion for them as a sanctuary: “ … though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while …” (Ezek. 11:16, ESV). And he was — during their 70 years in Babylonian captivity, God protected the Jews from annihilation, blessed them and, eventually, brought them back safely to their homeland.

So how can we be a sanctuary for those who are hurting and in need? Maybe it’s as simple as receiving God’s love and compassion so we can, in turn, share them with others.