Presence + Poettry Podcast

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 oth...

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...

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 wh...

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 Pr...

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...

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...

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...

What does it mean to fear the Lord in the light of the cross, the empty tomb, and the Holy Spirit? The Fear of the Lord may be the beginning of wisdom, but that doesn't mean we have to be afraid He is going to smite us. Because of the life Jesus lived and gave to us, our fear of the Lord must look different now. The Presence + Poettry Podcast is Priscilla and my (Jacob) attempt to share our in...

Your testimony is more than your conversion story—it's more than sharing how shameful or dirty you were before Jesus. Our lives are compelling not because of the shame we used to carry but because we don't carry it anymore. Take the pressure off your testimony! Your whole life is your testimony—both in the words you say and the way you live. Any time you have encountered the active presenc...

Why is being "childish" such a bad thing? Of course there are things that children do that just aren't okay and appropriate, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Children can be naïve and immature, but they can also be compassionate, insightful, and resilient. Whether your childhood was good or bad, we hope that, in this conversation, we can all learn to be okay with being a bit more c...

We all do it from time to time. Some of us more often than not. To connect to other people in their imperfection and pain, we decide it's better to bring ourselves down to their level instead of hearing them and empathizing with them without degrading ourselves in the process. Why do we do this? And what does Jesus show us as the example for how to live in confidence and not in insecurity? Pri...