Who We Are
Equipping servants and leaders to flourish.
Faithful Presence was founded in 2021 by Rev. Michael Langer with a simple yet critical mission: to offer whole-life discipleship, in the whole of life, for the whole of the public square. We are a gospel-centered ministry in our nation's capital, and we exist for everyone working both here in D.C., and around the country, who wants to do this work well, leave a gospel-anchored impact, and sustain their engagement for the long haul.
Our Founder
Built from a life in the work.
Michael Langer didn't come to Washington through politics. He came through pastoral ministry, church planting, and a growing conviction that the people shaping public life in America needed more than good intentions, they needed whole-life formation.
He grew up in Eastern Iowa, studied at the University of Iowa, and spent fifteen years in industrial sales before leaving to pursue a Master of Divinity at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. It was there that a professor introduced him to the Acton Institute and the rich Christian tradition on political philosophy and economic theory, and a new direction took shape.
After seminary, Michael returned to Iowa City to plant One Ancient Hope, where he also served on the Johnson County Local Homeless Coordinating Board. In 2015, the Langers moved to Chicago, where Michael guided a congregation through a full relaunch and served as City Director for Made to Flourish, a Kern Foundation project equipping pastors to integrate faith, work, and economics into discipleship.
In 2018, Michael moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as Associate Director for a Capitol Hill ministry before founding Faithful Presence in 2021. He is currently a PhD candidate in Public Square Theology at Stellenbosch University and an Associate Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge.
Michael and his wife Tess have been married for 36 years. They have four adult children, a son-in-law, and four grandchildren (so far).
Our Team
The people behind the work.
The Faithful Presence core team is dedicated to the long-term work of whole life discipleship in and for the public square
Rev. Michael Langer
Founder & President
Ruth Clark
Chief of Staff
Ben Vester
Ministry Resident
Sarah Campagna
Mission Support / Business Services
Senior Fellows
Grounded in serious scholarship.
The work of Faithful Presence is shaped in collaboration with credentialed scholars who serve as Senior Fellows, providing academic accountability, content review, and theological depth to everything we produce. Our fellows also contribute articles and interviews to our content portfolio.
Dr. Greg Forster
Trinity International University
Public Theology, Faith-Work Integration
Dr. Anthony Bradley
Acton Institute
Public Policy, Social Ethics
Dr. Amy Black
Wheaton College
Political Science, Evangelical Political Engagement
Dr. Charlie Self
AG Theological Seminary
Spiritual Formation, Discipleship Assessment
Governance
Accountable to a community of leaders.
Faithful Presence is governed by a Board of Directors composed of mature Christians from a cross-section of confessionally orthodox denominations, and supported by an Advisory Council with vocational ties to Washington and expertise across the seven facets of whole-life discipleship.
Board of Directors
Rev. Derek Buikema
Lead Pastor, Orland Park CRC
Rev. Greg Perry, Ph.D.
President, Thirdmill Seminary
Jim Perry, RPh.
Founder, District Drugs & Compounding
Dan Swenson
President, Iron Discipline Consulting
Dr. Jarrett Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.
Assoc. Clinical Prof., Washington Univ.
Larry Lorimor
Rev. Don Meeks
Walt Vester
Advisory Council
Rev. Michael Davis
Asst. Stated Clerk, EPC
Dr. Dan Sartor
Clinical Director, Wings Center
Nichole Rittgers
M.Div Student, Asbury Theological
Undisclosed (Five)
Public Square Engagement — Bipartisan, various agencies and staff offices
Our Beliefs
What we believe.
At Faithful Presence we find our identity in our faith, Christ, Scripture, and our participation in his Church.
Scripture
The Scriptures are our loving Father's means of communicating His will for a full and abundant life, and His way of expressing His desire to have a relationship with us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
The Trinity
There is only One God who has always existed as three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and that He really did create the world and everything in it.
Jesus Christ
His only Son, Jesus, was fully God and fully man, and that he came, lived, suffered, and died and rose again from the dead just as the Old Testament predicted - on our behalf to restore our relationship with God.
Salvation
Personal trust and commitment to follow and serve Jesus, and an admittance of our own inability to pay the penalty for our sinful actions, is all that is required. Faith itself is a free gift of grace.
The Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is God's gift to everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus, working in us to conform and transform us toward a more Christ-like character.
The Church
Jesus Christ sits as the head of the Church, a global family created to weep with those who weep and laugh with those who laugh, for our mutual encouragement and accountability.
The Gospel and Public Life
The truths of the Bible speak to all of life, including the most complex challenges of our culture. We hope to bring the peace and hope of the true gospel to Washington, D.C. and beyond.
Unity
"God would make us one, even as He and the Son are One, so that the world may know that God loves them, and sent His Son Jesus for them." (John 17:21)
We don't work alone.
Faithful Presence is a Gospel Coalition ministry of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and partners with like-minded organizations and ministries who share our vision of whole-life discipleship in the public square.
