What comes to your mind when you hear the word, “worship”? For me, when I think of worship, I see myself in church with my church family singing praises to Jesus. If you don’t know this, I love music! I have been playing instruments and singing for as long as I can remember, and my favorite place to use these talents has always been in church! Since moving to Mount Juliet, I have joined the choir and also the praise team at my church. I have met so many sweet people on this ministry team and they really helped my transition from a small country church to a larger church go smoothly! To me, there really is nothing like a sea of voices singing and worshipping the Lord together!
Recently, we have been worshipping in different formats, because churches all across the globe have transitioned to online due to COVID-19. Worship leaders and choir members have been pre recording for months now, while practicing and meeting over Zoom and other various platforms. One of the most beautiful things about worship is that worship isn’t confined to just the masses of a congregation. That is something that I have really learned since March. Seeing how the mission of the Church (as a whole) never changed was such an inspiring act. Churches globally continued to have their services, quickly adapted to this “new normal” but never ceased to spread the good news of Jesus.
You may ask, how has my worship routine changed during quarantine? To me, worship is where I take time to slow down and really focus on who God is and what all he has done for me. I used to call this my “quiet time” but since quarantine, I have decided that is not a good name for it. I love to talk. I cannot be quiet for 5 minutes, so now, I just call it my “Jesus time”. Every morning, I get out of bed, make my breakfast and coffee, and I grather my bible and all of my pens and highlighters. Then, I turn on my worship playlist and dive deep into scripture. While reading, I write down what I feel is important from my reading that day or things that I don’t understand. More often than not, my notes are a jumbled mess because my pages turn into me writing down lyrics from the songs that I listen to, or I talk to God about what is bothering me or troubling me.
Another way that I think about worship is that worship is an extension of my conversation with Jesus. Worship may not always be listening to a good playlist or worshiping with the congregation, it can happen in many formats and settings. In Psalm 66, the psalmist explains that singing praises are not the only way to worship God. Worship can be as simple as taking time to appreciate the beauties of his creation through hiking or taking a walk. In verse 4, the psalmist talks about how “all the earth will worship you, and sing praises to your name.” To the ancient Jews, names were more than just a word, their name was a true indication of their character. Calling on his name allows us to enter into the personal relationship with Him, and calling him by name will always be one of my favorite parts of worship.
Over the last year, I have been learning how to hand letter and draw digitally on my iPad. I have discovered how amazing it feels to use this creative outlet to worship Jesus! I love getting to create things that bring people joy, but most importantly, things that point people to Christ! This form of creative worship has really helped me understand the creative abilities that God has given me! He gave me so many artistic abilities, why wouldn’t I use them to worship him? That being said, I created a template for how I take my notes when reading my bible that I wanted to share with you! One of the dreams of this blog is to spread the gospel and share things that we learn through scripture, another dream is to use this as a resource for our followers. We love creating and researching new ways to dive deep into scripture and hope that this blog is always an extension of that part of our hearts!
Samantha and I are blown away with the amount of love and support that we have received over the last week! As we continue to grow this blog, we hope that we continue to stir your affections for Jesus by showing you how he is growing us in our daily walks! We are honored to be on this journey with you and cannot wait to see what happens next!
Be a Blessing,
Courtney F.
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