Presence + Poettry Podcast

This week, Priscilla finally got her turn! After I (Jacob) got the chance to sit across the studio with our dear friend and spiritual mentor, Ryan Mackey, Priscilla returned the favor—and like every conversation with this wonderful man, it ran long, so we've split this into two parts as well! This is Part 1.

Both Priscilla & Ryan have spent some time in graduate theological study—Priscilla being in the middle of her Master's of Divinity from Northeastern Seminary, and Ryan recently receiving his Doctorate of Musicology from Durham University in the UK (the capstone degree on top of several Master's degrees in varying topics of music and theology).

This half is an honest conversation about what it looks like to learn alongside people who believe differently than you and the surprising gift that can be if seen with an unbiased eye. When we are able to stop fearing other backgrounds and traditions, what might God have to teach us from others we may disagree with or see things differently than us?

About Our Guest: Bishop Dr. Ryan Mackey is the Chair of Humanities at Central Christian College of Kansas, a Bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a musician and creator behind the Instagram account @SacredGlitches, and most recently, a graduate Doctorate of Musicology from Durham University.

About Presence + Poettry: We're Jacob & Priscilla Poettker—a pastor and a poet—making spaces to encounter God's active presence in everyday life. We do this in more ways than just on a podcast: worship, preaching, photography, videography, branding & messaging, and other creative expressions to help people be more present with themselves, others, and God.

This is the second half to the conversation I (Jacob) had last week with longtime friend and spiritual mentor Bishop Dr. Ryan Mackey. If you haven't heard the first half, yet go back and start there (link below)

After talking about how the church can be a safer place for creativity in our previous episode, Ryan and I dove deeper in this second half on how our creativity flows from our identities as image-bearers of God and our relationship with Him. Also, how do we fight against a culture of consumption when even those that believe they don't have a creative bone in their body are still made in the image of a Creative God?

If you'd like to hear more conversations like this one—with Bishop Ryan, others guests, or just Priscilla and I—follow the show so you can get updates on our future episodes!

About Our Guest: Bishop Dr. Ryan Mackey is the Chair of Humanities at Central Christian College of Kansas, a Bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC), a musician and creator behind the Instagram account @SacredGlitches, and recently earned his doctorate in musicology from Durham University.

About Presence + Poettry: We are Jacob & Priscilla Poettker—a pastor and a poet—making spaces to encounter God's active presence in everyday life. We also do more than just talk on a podcast: worship, preaching, photography, videography, branding design, and other creative work built around helping people be more present with themselves, each other, and God.

This week's episode is a little different. With Priscilla wrestling with her final paper for her online class, we invited long-time friend and spiritual father to the both of us—Bishop Dr. Ryan Mackey—into a conversation about the role creativity plays in the spiritual life.

With no rules or restraints around this conversation, it ended up going much longer than normal so we have split this into two episodes.

At the center of this episode is a question worth sitting with: has the church been a safe place for creativity? And how can we help it be that safe place again?

NEXT WEEK Bp. Ryan and I (Jacob) will go deeper into what our creativity reveals about our identities as image-bearers of God and how it flows out of our relationship with Him. So, be sure to follow us to be reminded when this part 2 drops!

About Our Guest: Bishop Dr. Ryan Mackey is the Chair of Humanities at Central Christian College of Kansas, a bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a musician and creator behind the Instagram account Sacred Glitches, and a doctor in musicology from Durham University.

About Presence + Poettry: We're Jacob & Priscilla Poettker—a pastor and an artist—making spaces to encounter God's active presence in everyday life. We do more than talk on a podcast: worship, preaching, photography, videography and other creative work built on helping people be present with themselves, each other, and God

With our 5th anniversary being this week, Priscilla and I (Jacob) had a beautiful conversation about how we have both encountered God's presence in each other throughout our marriage, the identities we carried, the expectations we assumed needed to be met, and the shame we had to let go of.

And through it all, the beautiful realization that God seemed to have taken the vows we made to each other as a roadmap for the work He would do in us throughout those 5 years. So cool!

Mentioned In this Episode:

- Lovology by John Mark Comer

- "Stewarding the Body and Fleeing Sexual Sin" by With the Perrys: https://open.spotify.com/episode/02S7waeNVtFrwKe12oX8Dk?si=c4046fe3f0c14165

About Presence + Poettry

We're Jacob &Priscilla Poettker—a pastor and an artist—making spaces to encounter God's active presence in everyday life. We do more than talk on a podcast: worship, preaching, photography, videography and other creative work built on helping people be present with themselves, each other, and God

In today's episode, Priscilla and I (Jacob) had a very interesting conversation around what it really means to live as image bearers of God and how often we tend not to grasp the full reality of what that means.

Jesus was both fully God and fully human—a fact we tend to overlook when we look in the mirror. Jesus was the embodiment of God in human flesh. He bore God's image in his body and so do we. Yet, we struggle to live like we really believe that.

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Through this podcast and our other creative expressions (photography, videography, worship, and more) we aim to help people live more present to themselves, to others, and to God.

Jesus tells us that the Kingdom is near, but that was over 2,000 years ago. So, was he lying? Was he crazy? Or did he mean something else?

We live in a chaotic and noisy world, but that doesn't mean we have to throw the world away in order to hear God's voice. He calls us to spend time with Him in the silence so that we may take his voice to the world.

Join us for this episode where we find out what silence, music theory, and the Kingdom of Heaven all have in common!

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Because if we are to reconstruct a life and faith that feels alive again, we must build it around the presence of God.

If we feel guilty enjoying something, shouldn't that mean we need to avoid it? Or is there something deeper going on?

We give way too much power to our "guilty pleasures."

How can we discern what is actually bad for us and what do we feel guilty about due to pressures from those we are trying to impress or the culture we're trying to fit into?

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Because if we are to reconstruct a life and faith that feels alive again, we must build it around the presence of God.

After Priscilla preached at The Father's House last Sunday, we sat down and reflected on her message and what it means to invest in the spiritual formation of the next generation and SURPRISE!

It's not about volunteering in more church programs...

It's about learning to sit in the presence of our God who is always present with us so that the next generation may follow our example.

All followers of Jesus have a calling to invest in the next generation of the Church and most of us know that, but there still seems to be something that gets in the way of our ability to do so.

This next generation doesn't need more programs, services, fog machines, or big corporate events. They want our presence—our authenticity.

But we have to be able to give it to them.

Here's the link to Priscilla's message: https://youtu.be/YILk9QeNhAs?si=XKFmUgmGsExFn7EA

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Because if we are to reconstruct a life and faith that feels alive again, we must build it around the presence of God.

God is present all around us—we are living in His creation after all. He is always speaking and always active, but we may not always hear Him or recognize His voice, especially while we live in such a noisy and distracting world.

We can't put that genie back in the bottle—the world isn't going to get less noisy anytime soon—so how can we be present with ourselves so that we may be present with God? Is the only way to tune our ears to hear His voice to cut out everything and go live in a cave? How can we fulfill our calling to share the Gospel with the world if we do?

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Because if we are to reconstruct a life and faith that feels alive again, we must build it around the presence of God.

In Deuteronomy, the Lord charged the parents with the laws and decrees and explained that there was a reason He gave it to them, and not their children—the children had not seen the hand of God and the amazing things He had done.

So, if the people who had not seen the Lord were not expected to follow His decrees as passionately as those who had, how should that change what we expect from those who haven't seen God in their lives?

And how should that shape why we follow the Lord?

The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our insights, sarcasm, hope, and chaos as we encounter God's active presence in our everyday lives. Because if we are to reconstruct a life and faith that feels alive again, we must build it around the presence of God.