Write the Word: Cultivate Worship Online Bible Studies Week 1

Cultivate OBS Video Week 1 MT: Melissa Taylor LC: Lara Casey {Music} MT: Hi, everyone, and welcome to our final Online Bible Study of 2020. And what a year it has been. Oh my goodness. My name is Melissa Taylor and I’m joined by my friend and someone who you are going to really grow to love over the next few weeks. Her name is Lara Casey. Hey, Lara, how are you doing? LC: Hi! I’m so excited to be here. So pumped. MT: So am I. Okay, you guys something that Lara did changed my life. And I’m going to tell you about that later.

But right now I want you to know it has to do with our Online Bible Study, 00:32 - this Write the Word, Cultivate Worship journal. And so Lara, I know you and your team, it’s called Cultivate What Matters, is the name of like the whole organization and all the many different things that they have. And I want you to tell us a little bit about why you started Cultivate What Matters, which led to us doing this Online Bible Study. LC: Yes. {Laughing} Well, I have to laugh because the name Cultivate What Matters is a little bit of a miracle in itself. I mean, even before we got on here together, Melissa, I thought to myself, me? Cultivate What Matters? Any type of garden reference feels so foreign to the life I was living years ago.

01:14 - I am a very unlikely gardener, first of all, and I’ve killed a lot of plants in my life. And not because I didn’t know how in my mind to take care of them. But because I just didn’t want to. I was grasping at so much instant gratification, anything to just numb my mind, get through the day, you know, scroll on Instagram, I was impatient. Years ago, my life was a big mess. You know, it still is a mess, in many ways, praise God for His grace. But at the time, my marriage was falling apart.

And I was just trying, I think a lot of us have felt that way 01:47 - this year, that we are just trying so hard. Trying to be present, or trying to keep things together, trying to get your to do list done, whatever it may be. But the bottom line is, I did not want to wait for good things to grow. Until God got a hold of my heart. You know, I love, I love, I have chills right now telling you this, it’s always — but God got ahold of my heart. And little by little over time, He not only changed my marriage, but He cultivated my heart.

He taught me how to 02:18 - cultivate what matters as well in the big picture. Now, let’s just pause here. Cultivate is a rich word, we were just talking before about how much we love this word, that to cultivate means to till up the soil, to prepare it for new growth, to, and I literally do this in my garden now, I take a big old shovel. And I mean, I get some muscle into it. {Laughter} I actually had to go to a doctor once and they were like, why did you injure your neck and I was like, I was cultivating. The irony is just crazy, I know. MT: Lara, hold on just a minute, because when I think of tilling up, I think ouch. LC: Right. MT: That can be a little painful. And it can unearth some things that maybe I wasn’t expecting. But that’s what cultivating is all about.

That’s what provides or produces the beauty in the end. LC: Yeah, and you know, it’s so perfect for a year like this, when we have experienced so many incredibly difficult things that the parallel and my garden is actually, it’s the roots of the past. It’s the old leaves, it’s you know, if you compost, it’s a bunch of other old things from their house that actually mixed together and make a rich soil. You don’t just take all those things out, you don’t just take out the soil from last year you use it, you cultivate it. So over time, my marriage was changed, my heart was changed.

03:35 - And it really gave me an insatiable desire to help other women know that they don’t have to just try to keep up. Instead, they can cultivate little by little. So that’s what we do here at Cultivate, is help women, whether it’s through writing the word or through setting meaningful goals, uncover what matters, make a flexible plan to live it out. And then to live it out little by little and no perfection is required for any of that. MT: That’s exactly why we chose to do this for this Online Bible Study. Because what a great thing to end on. And also to prepare for another year ahead, which probably is going to have some unexpected — LC: Yes. MT: — situations that we’re not ready for.

04:18 - Let me just just tell you guys a little bit about this particular study. You might be asking, well, why worship? Well, we want to say why not worship, there is, no matter what’s going on, there’s so much to praise God for that sometimes we need those reminders. And so we’re going to be going right to His Word to get those. And then like, why three weeks? We’ve never had a Bible study that has been three weeks before. This is very short. But you know what, we’re going to get you started in this journal, but there is more than three weeks of journal pages and content in here.

04:52 - So we’re going to get started with three weeks but then we want you to keep going beyond this three week study. But also this is a busy time of year and we recognize that. Okay, it’s between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And so we didn’t want anybody to feel overwhelmed during the holidays. And you know what this study, it was a joint effort. It’s a partnership between the Cultivate What Matters team and the Proverbs 31 Ministries Team. You can only get this journal in our bookstore, alright. It’s not being sold anywhere else. Because when you dig into it, you’re going to open it up and see that it was created, this particular journal was created for this time, for this Online Bible Study. The Scriptures that are in here were handpicked by the Cultivate team and the Proverbs 31 Ministries team for this time, right now. And so we’re really excited to go through it.

And just real briefly, I’ll tell you, I did a Cultivate journal, I did a Write the Word 05:50 - journal about a year ago, a little over a year ago, when I was looking for a Bible study. But I did not want one where I was going to have to do a lot of work. And doesn’t that sound horrible, but I just was having some trouble in my life. And I really needed to know that God was there. And someone told me about the Write the Word journal and they’re like, Melissa, you’re going to love it. Because it’s simple. And you don’t have to think about what you’re going to do. And you don’t have to prepare for what’s coming. You just open your journal each day. And there’s the scripture for you to write and you realize, wow, I needed this scripture today. It got my mind focused on, on things that maybe it wouldn’t have focused on if I hadn’t been led into the Word for that. And then there’s a place for reflection, like what’s on your heart today where you can just write out. And again, that writing out makes a big difference, more than I ever thought that it would.

And then there’s a place for you to put your word of the day. And y’all, your word of the day, it can really change. I know, we probably, some of us, have a word of the year. But if you look at each day, because you know what’s coming up the next day, your word for today might be ugh, help me Jesus. LC: {Laughter} Yes! MT: It could be thank you, Jesus, you know, I mean, you just don’t know. And so it was really fun to have something like that. So I’m excited for you guys. It made a big difference in my life. It transforms. That’s why we’re doing this study, is because I went to the Proverbs team and said this, this journal has changed my life, this Writing the Word has changed my life. And I want to make sure we share it with our OBSers. And so Lara, as we are wrapping up 2020, I don’t think anyone’s sad to see 2020 go, right? No, but as we’re wrapping it up, we’re gonna be focusing on worship, because we think worship is that important. And so why in this season, do you think worship is so important? LC: Yeah, it’s been such a difficult year in so many facets, right? I think each of us could probably write a list that’s 100 pages long.

07:47 - And we come up to Scriptures like First Thessalonians 5:16 and 17. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. And it just, it feels hard, just feels hard. When I think about the things that we’ve experienced as a family or things that friends have experienced. I just think, Lord, how do we do that? Can you please show me the way? How are we supposed to rejoice in all circumstances in a year like this, especially, and again, so many of us have been through extraordinary things. So let’s just stop there.

And just acknowledge that this has been a really hard year.. But God is bigger. And you know, sometimes I wish I had a magic wand. I really just need to make one for myself like a pretend one just to feel good about it. But I want a magic wand, the kind that’s going to put all the mess in my house back together. You know, sometimes I walk downstairs, I have three kids, and I walk downstairs and I’m like, Where’s that magic wand? Someone give me the magic wand. And I, of course, I’ve not found said magic wand yet. If anyone finds one, call me.

But I have 08:51 - found something that helps to put my heart, my soul, back in order. And that is writing the Word. Now I’m going to tell you a couple of things that I think are going to help you to deepen your study time. And when we say study, like Melissa said, this is just getting directly into the Word. Lots of people tell me I love the Write the Word journals, they’ve changed my life. To which I say it’s actually the Word of God that’s changing your life. MT: No lie. LC: It is the Word of God that is living and active. That changes us from the inside out. But there’s also something to the act of writing things. So again, whether you have scrap paper right now, or do you have your journal in front of you, give this a try right now. There was a study done between two universities where they looked at students who took notes on a laptop or computer versus longhand in their own messy handwriting. The summation of that study is that those who took notes, just using their messy handwriting actually not only retained the information, but they were forced to capture the heart of that information.

09:51 - And in capturing the heart of that information, they start to do something about what they’ve written. Now here’s how it works. We start with thoughts. Then our thoughts, they turn into actions and decisions, which turns into outcome. So you can see how this works. When we write the Word, like the living and active Word of God, it gets into our hearts. It actually changes us. And how does that turn into worship? Like, why do this, right? You’re thinking, I’m still tired, Lara. {Laughter} I hear you. But I will tell you that every single time I’ve sat down to open up, this is my worship journal that I did at the start of this year.

Every single time that I sit down to 10:33 - write out the Word, I am forced to tune out everything that’s happening, right, because you can passively read the Bible. Reading the Bible is, God wants us to read the Bible. But when we write the words of Scripture, we actually have to tune out everything that’s happening. Our mind can’t necessarily think about our to do list or the grocery list at the same time. And so we really are blocking out all the distractions. And then when we do that, when the Word gets in our heart, we can’t help but worship. A worship-filled heart is a heart that’s just been has been intersected with the gospel, with God’s Word. It’s a natural outpouring of a heart that knows grace, that knows who God is. So that is the magic wand. Worship comes from a lot of things. It can come from a lot of things. It’s not just singing in church on Sunday, though. Worship truly is proclaiming who God is. And one of the great ways we’re going to do that together is through writing His Word. MT: Right? I just love it.

You know what? Like 11:34 - I said earlier, it reminds you that God is who He says He is. And we can trust that in any and all situations. LC: Yes. MT: This will help you give thanks in the end, right? Am I right? I’m just really excited. So Lara, thank you so much. Thanks for joining us today. You guys. This is going to be a great three weeks. So thanks so much for joining us. Get your journals out. We’re starting today, okay? It doesn’t say day one, day two, day three. All right. It started on, you know, go one page at a time and, and we’re really excited to do this with you. So we’re going to be digging into God’s Word.

12:13 - And if you’ve ever joined us for an Online Bible Study in the past few years, we have been ending our time together by reminding all of us of something and that is God’s Word is, this is the truth that you can trust in this world. LC: Yes. MT: When you know that truth, and you live that truth, it really does change everything. And we believe that this Write the Word, writing God’s Word journal, is going to help us do just that. So let’s have a great week one, everybody. Thanks for joining us today, Lara. LC: Bye. Thanks, friends can’t wait to be back next week. MT: Bye. {Music} .