God Still Blesses Us through the Local Church

GCD Newsletter 1st November 2023

I’m totally biased, but I have loved our fall series of articles on the GCD website. I’m sure I’m just about the only one who has read every single article—I get paid to do that. Still, they’ve been so encouraging.

There can be so much bad press about the local church, and it’s often justified, but at the same time, it’s been wonderful to hear the ways the local church has blessed our authors. This is not to say that we haven’t talked about the harder, more complex parts of belonging to a local church. We’ve done some of that too. But our articles this fall have struck an overall note of hope and thanksgiving. And I, for one, have been blessed.

This week we have articles from three staff writers. Chrys Jones writes about how he can tend to have morbid introspection and how being around the body of Christ helps him think about more than himself. Erin Jones came from what might be called a low-church, non-denom background and has found life and joy and warmth in high-church liturgy. Tim Shorey has a short article about going to church and being increasingly inspired by songs about death. We also had a guest post from a first-time author named Stephanie O’Donnell. She wrote about how God poured his love into her heart through a rural church in her town of 700 people.

There is a lot of junk that happens in the local church. But don’t forget that God still uses the church to bless the world in beautiful ways.

Thanks for reading,

Benjamin Vrbicek

Managing Editor
Gospel-Centered Discipleship

Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com

The Unexpected Blessing of a Rural Church
by Stephanie O’Donnell

I wanted nothing to do with the church. Then everything changed when a guitar teacher quit his job and planted a church in our town of 700 and became our gospel preacher.

For the Love of Liturgy
by Erin Jones

I’ll always treasure the first moments I set foot in my church. Broken, hurting, and flinching from the wreckage of a church that was crumbling, I set foot in a sanctuary that resonated with gentle tones of an organ. Congregants sat quietly in wooden pews. Red carpet yawned in front of me and sunlight streamed in through the stained glass windows at the side. A smiling usher handed me a bulletin and found me a seat. The reverence and expectation in the room was palpable.

Redeeming Love Has Been My Theme and Shall Be Until I Die: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#15)
by Tim Shorey

Tim Shorey, one of our staff writers, is journaling through his struggle with stage 4 cancer. In this entry he reflects how deeply moving songs about a Christian’s death have become.

The Local Church Helps Rid Me of Morbid Introspection
by Chrys Jones

During some of my worst moments of deep introspection, Satan has fired darts at my mind to make me question my salvation and usefulness in my home and local church.

“My heart sings as I read Bob’s words. In this book he takes us beyond facile or formulaic articulations of the Christian life in which our performance always seems to slip in as the key ingredient to calm and joy. Instead Bob plunges our hearts into the deep and wondrous truths of the biblical gospel where Jesus and his grace for ongoing sinners is so real that our cynicism and hardness and discouragement don’t stand a chance! Thank you for helping me to repent, believe, and fight, Bob!”

Dane Ortlund, author of Gentle and Lowly and Pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church

The Gospel Waltz is an unapologetic treatise on grace, not shying away from theological truth but processing it through the lens of a simple and highly memorable tool for a life lived abiding in Christ. Through the accessible paradigm of repent, believe, and fight, the Waltz offers a framework to take hold of the gospel in everyday life and appreciate the transformational and refreshing power of unrelenting grace.