Presence

Presence was built upon the conviction that to be a “Christian” (that is, to be an imitator or follower of Jesus) means to be actively engaged in community needs and social awareness. We cannot divorce Jesus’ words about caring for the wounded and hurting from our day-to-day lives. From the outset we explored where and how we could be most meaningfully attuned to those who were being most ostracized by the rest of society.

In our city, London, Ontario, there is an array of social services for people struggling with homelessness, hunger, mental disabilities and substance addictions. Churches and shelters coordinate together to provide meals every night of the week. There are several high profile social service agencies offering beds to sleep in, employment training, and other forms of emotional and physical support. We realized that to create another “social service” for the downtown core was simply redundant, repetitive, and potentially more divisive than helpful.

However, the fact remains that our city is home to a large (and seemingly increasing) number of very lonely, isolated and disenfranchised people: individuals who, despite months and years in the social service system, remain shunned for their addictive relapses or mental disabilities.

We realized that our purpose here was not to create another “social service” for the city, but to make the streets, ally ways, and public spaces of London a part of our lives too. In other words: we call ourselves “Presence” because we are called to be with people and learn how to be the best friends we can possibly be. Our role as a church community is to be present with others. To listen and learn from them. We are motivated to do something a social agency or humanitarian organization could never “programmize” into practice: we’re here to genuinely love our neighbors, whoever they might be. People are not “projects” to be organized and sorted in priority by their socioeconomic standing.

We engage in our community not only because it allows us to share love, but also because the community invites us to learn and to be loved. We expect help, healing, forgiveness and generosity from others in the community as well, seeking to rebalance the power disparity which often exists between “us” and “them.” We too are asking to be loved and cared for. This ethos of presence must transcend the hours in our days: our relationships with co-worker, our boss, other commuters, our families, etc. Whoever we find ourselves with during the day offers an opportunity to reflect the same character of care and compassion. People are people wherever you find them.

Within the Presence community you will find people working this out in different ways. Some people focus their energy primarily on being present and available to those in their workplaces, while others carve out and prioritize an evening or two a week to play cards or crokinole at the London Coffee House (a free community coffee house on Dundas Street). Some of us intentionally roam the streets of London and consider “Do you have any spare change?” as the invitation to a conversation (not a nuisance to be ignored). Some of us are running orphanages in Africa. The thing we have in common is a desire to live out the two greatest ideals we know: “Love your neighbor” and “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” We have a long way to go, but we’re committed to putting one foot in front of the other to learn the next step.

So wherever we are, we are first called to be “all there” with eyes and ears open to the people, needs and opportunities around us.

As you may have guessed by now, we don’t emphasize running “programs” to accomplish this vision. We won’t ask you to sign up for a soup kitchen or anything like that. But we will challenge you to peer deep into your soul and ask some questions about what matters most in life. Presence is a “success” if together we are daily, incrementally, becoming a more loving and embracing community of people, wherever we happen to be.