Esther Kovoor, 20, is a Worship Intern at her local church, Christ Church Clifton, in Bristol.

How did you get involved in leading worship?

When I was 15 I sang in a talent show in my church youth group. I then started singing in the worship band and later on leading worship. It’s been amazing how God has taken something I was doing in vanity to begin with and now it’s something I see as my calling. I went from an attitude of ‘I want to be worshipped’ – for people to like my singing – to worshipping Jesus daily as a lifestyle.

So for you is it about a ‘lifestyle of worship’ rather than ‘times of worship’?

It’s both. Recently I was leading worship and the sound stopped working just as I was about to start. I had to put down my guitar and lead without it. By the end I felt like everything had gone wrong; I hadn’t worship, I was distracted.

Then in the following week I felt the presence of God in my life like nothing else. For me it came back to seeing my whole life as being worship to God, not just having worship times that work out as I planned them. Yet, the following weekend I led again and it was one of the most amazing times of worship I’ve experienced. The presence of God was there, people were so excited and there was a real shift of atmosphere.

Why should we prioritise worship?

God created us to worship. When we’re not prioritising worship we’re not prioritising the thing that make us, us. When a keyboard is plugged into its power source it sounds great. When it’s not plugged in there just is no sound. When we’re plugged into God through worship things makes sense and we understand our calling.