Our Approach
Our Mission
Helping leaders and organizations co-create environments of healing and belonging by neighboring well
Our mission grew out of lived experience—years of sharing life in community, learning from our neighbors, and being shaped by the slow work of presence. Our guiding principles name the posture and practices that continue to ground us as we accompany leaders and communities today.
Guiding Principles
The image of God resides in each of us.
We look for and recognize the image of God in every person, honoring the inherent dignity of each individual. We offer respect and call out the best in one another. We work toward equity focusing on mutual empowerment reflected in our shared life together. We challenge our prejudices by acknowledging, honoring and celebrating our differences.
Spiritual care begins with safety. It’s strengthened through solidarity.
We are trauma-informed, healing-centered, and relationships-driven. We take a pastoral approach to ministry by leaning into love and walking alongside folks as they navigate the joys and challenges that life throws their way. We know that many small moments of positive, safe interaction gradually builds trust with our neighbors who haven’t always had supportive relationships.
Micro-moments matter.
We are place-based and rooted in our neighborhood. With an incarnational approach to ministry, we are not only present for events, services, and gatherings, but for the day-in and day-out happenings of life. We value intentional listening and spend much of our time being present vs. doing ministry.
Hurt happens in relationships; so does healing.
We were created for community and wholeheartedly believe that no one should live in isolation. Folks who have experienced relational harm like neglect, abuse, marginalization, and loss of family, end up in protection mode for survival. We are compassionate witnesses to this reality, and aim to lead with and lean into genuine connection with one another. We widen the circle of family, center those who have been marginalized, and live with the understanding that our shared humanity makes us kin.
Jesus is the center of our life and our ministry.
We are a Christian ministry that respects and honors the unique traditions of each of our neighbors. We follow Jesus’s example of love and inclusion by creating spaces that are grounded in love and grace. We live with hope and are committed to doing all we can to bring God’s kingdom of peace & justice here on earth.
Where A Faithful Presence began
For more than five years, our family shared life alongside neighbors exiting chronic homelessness in a tiny home village of over 300 residents. During that time, we had the gift of leading and learning in community—guiding the intentional neighbor program, facilitating ecumenical worship, hosting shared meals, and creating spaces for prayer, small groups, and seasonal services where both lament and joy could belong.
These years formed us in the slow, relational work of healing: walking with neighbors through recovery and relapse, conflict and reconciliation, grief and celebration. In a diverse community, we learned how belonging grows through presence, trust, and shared leadership. This lived experience, alongside pastoral ministry and spiritual direction training, shaped the posture and practices at the heart of A Faithful Presence.
What grounds our approach
Our consulting is rooted in the integration of lived experience, pastoral formation, trauma-informed practices, and spiritual direction. We draw from the rhythms of intentional community life, the wisdom of spiritual care, and years of cultivating healing-centered environments. This blended foundation allows us to walk alongside leaders and teams with both practical insight and a deeply relational, Jesus-centered posture.
Who helps shape this ministry
A Faithful Presence is shaped not only by one family’s story, but by the wisdom and leadership of neighbors who shared life with us in community. Their lived experience continues to inform our work through our board, advisory council, and collaborative roles. We believe healing and belonging deepen when a diversity of voices leads the way—especially those who have lived the realities we seek to support.
“The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.”- Mother Teresa“Relationships matter: the currency for systemic change was trust, and trust comes through forming healthy working relationships. People, not programs, change people.”
— Bruce D. Perry