The Ministry of Presence: A Call to Linger with Each Other

More Than a Like, a Comment, or a Text

There is a kind of healing that doesn't come with words. It doesn’t live in a text thread or a quick heart emoji. It doesn’t hide in a social media shoutout or a once-a-month check-in. It dwells in presence. Lingering. Unapologetic. Embodied presence.

In a time when virtual gestures are mistaken for real connection, we are being called back to something deeper. Something sacred.

A Legacy of Showing Up

We are a people descended from those who knew how to be with one another. Not just beside one another. With. In grief, in joy, in rage, in birth, in funeral processions, in porch-sitting, in kitchen-table truth-telling.

Ours is a sacred tradition of showing up. Of bearing witness. Of not letting go of the hand, even when the world demanded we look away.

When Presence Becomes Protest

Something in this age has tried to convince us otherwise. Tried to make us believe presence could be digitized, that solidarity could be scheduled, that love could be expressed without effort, that care could be outsourced.

But while we scroll, like, and repost— Black bodies are still bleeding. Black mothers are still mourning. Black futures are being legislated out of existence. They’re banning our books, erasing our histories, rewriting our truths in real time, and doing it with a smile.

This is not new. It’s just louder now. And the only thing strong enough to hold us together is a presence that refuses to look away.

Reclaiming the Sacred Act of Being There

We must recover the ministry of presence. To knock on the door, and sit in the silence if that’s what the moment calls for. To cook a meal without being asked. To hold space when someone has no words for what they’re carrying. To stand at the foot of another’s suffering and say with our bodies, You do not carry this alone.

Let this be a season of re-learning what our elders always knew: That presence is protest. That to stay when systems tell us to scatter is a radical act. That to build something unshakable, we must be unshakable together.

We Are the Circle

This is not about overextending or burning out. This is not about playing savior or martyr. This is about returning to the pulse of community. Where one person’s pain ripples through the circle and doesn’t stop until we’ve circled back with love.

The world is sharpening its teeth again. They are hunting us with policies and indifference. And we must be watchmen on the walls of each other’s souls. Not just in November elections or summer protests, but in the quiet Tuesday nights when someone’s heart is slipping through the cracks.

A Love That Lingers

So show up. Knock twice. Hold eye contact a little longer. Don’t rush the goodbye. Let your body say what words can’t: I am here. I see you. I will stay. In this season, we are not called to do everything. But we are called to be fully, intentionally, lovingly present.

That, beloveds, is the ministry of presence. And it is sacred.