I love making time in my week for one-on-one coffee dates with my friends. We don’t need to meet at a swanky cafe in order to have a good time. Honestly, I prefer a good homebrew or grabbing a cup on the way to their house over sitting in a busy coffee shop.

One day, I was meeting a friend at her house for one of these aforementioned hangouts. The conversation turned from normal catch up, to ways we connect with the Father best. As she sat and described her methods for pursuing a deeper connection with God, I found myself surprised at how different her methods were from mine. Don’t get me wrong, they were all perfectly good ways to practice an authentic connection to God, but it got me thinking: how many ways are there to connect to the Father?

The reality is, there are many ways to connect to our Heavenly Father than we see traditionally displayed at church. Our corporate worship settings are designed to bring believers together for fellowship and unified worship of our God and King. However, we often note the methods used in our corporate setting and apply them to our personal private worship time. Although worship with song and reading the Word of God are excellent ways to connect to Him and should not be neglected, we have a myriad of ways to do those things in our own time. I would love to share with you some ways myself and others I know like to connect to the Father in a deeper way throughout the week.

Within the area of Bible reading, you can switch up the ways you consume the Word. Here is a list of ways to come at scripture from different angles:

BIBLE

Reading your Bible (just reading through scriptures)
Studying your Bible (looking up different words and the context of the passage)
Reading Commentary on the books of the Bible
Memorizing Scripture
Turning Scripture into Art
Journaling Scripture
Doing a Topic Study (i.e. a study on faith, prayer, marriage, etc.)

* Here are a few options from SLD

Completing a daily devotional
Following a Bible App plan

When we pray at church, oftentimes, we are praying corporately and in an all-encompassing manner. Our prayer time at home can take on many forms and mixing it up keeps this part of our relationship fresh:

PRAYER

Prayer journaling
Praying out loud
Praying through a list
Praying scripture over yourself or others

Corporate worship tends to be defined as the songs that are sung in a church service. We see worship as singing songs, but that is only one form of worship:

WORSHIP

Listening to Christian (uplifting) music
Singing worship to Him
Meditating on who He is while listening to Christian music
Allowing your creative mind to wander with Him as the focus (daydreaming with the Holy Spirit)
Doing art with Christian music
Actively listening for the Voice of God (Being Still)

This list isn’t exhaustive, but I hope it gets you started in your own exploration of how you connect with the Father best. We are all unique and I believe we get to express our personalities (that He created) when we interact with Him. As I write, we are in an unprecedented time of quarantine in our country. Maybe this is the time to slow down and be intentional with figuring out how you connect best to your Heavenly Father.

With the above list in mind, I’d love to share a few questions to help you explore your best practices. Take time to reflect on them and let the Holy Spirit reveal more about your relationship. Comment below or share on our social media platforms.

How often do you feel deeply connected to the Father?

Is a church service a frequent time of deep connection?

What motivates you to pursue a deeper connection with God?

What are the symptoms of a disconnect for you?

Do you have a go-to remedy to reconnect?

Connection