Ashley is our new executive assistant. She is awesome!  Ashley has an incredible heart for worship and is a very gifted worship leader.   Listen to her heart and please leave a comment!  I have another free copy of The 30 Day Praise Challenge to give away! 

From Ashley:

This past Sunday, as I was worshiping with my regular church community, I felt a switch turn inside me. I was confronted with the idea of extravagant worship. What does it look like to go deeper, to praise God unashamedly, and to really give Him all the glory and honor He deserves? This concept has come to my stream of thought periodically throughout my life. In 2 Samuel 6:22, David says, “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” This was after he was “dancing with all of his might” in the city streets. Though this was a public act, it was also a very intimate exchange. David decided that what the Lord meant to him, and the honor he wanted the Lord to receive, was of higher value even than his own reputation as a King.

How many times do we sit through a worship service and think, “I’m just not feeling it today,” or “I’m too tired to stand for 20 minutes,” or “I can’t stand this song; they play it too much.” I know I’m not the only one guilty of having these thoughts. But what I’ve come to understand is that it’s not about you and me, it’s not about the band or the worship experience, it’s not even about the music or act of singing. Worship is so much more than something we do to get our hearts right on Sunday morning. It is a lifestyle lived every day that brings glory to God. Worship is an overflow of love for our Heavenly Father that is unshakable by circumstances.

God is always a good God, always worthy of ALL the glory, ALL the honor, and ALL the praise. He gave it ALL for us, and when we can come to a place of giving EVERYTHING to Him, He is honored, and it positions us in a place to receive His love in the truest form. Worship can be as simple as welcoming Him into every part of your day and as extravagant as singing and dancing with all your might. In Mark 12:30, Jesus talks about the greatest commandment and says, ^“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Can you imagine how life would change if we as a church truly made that our number one priority? Loving God with everything we are, giving Him every part of us in total humility before Him, is the truest act of worship and will bring us to a new level of intimacy with the Father.