Singing Over the Traffic
GCD Weekly Newsletter 08/29/2022
Three or four times a week, walking down the busiest road between my house and the cafe I regularly write in, I open my mouth and sing as loud as I can over the noise of the passing cars. This morning I sang, “Sleeping on the Foldout,” by Brad Paisley because I did, in fact, sleep on the foldout last night and it seemed appropriate1. Sometimes I worship, other times it’s ballads, but more often than not I sing country music. It doesn’t really matter what the song is, the point is to wake myself up and get ready to face the day and I find that singing helps.
It’s often said that worship is more than just songs on Sunday, and that’s true, our praise shouldn’t stop just because there are no lyrics on a page or a screen in front of us. With that said, whatever it looks like in the day-to-day, daily worship can often feel like that busy road, singing over the noise, over the traffic, and possibly even the embarrassment. In those times it’s worth remembering the congregation we stand side-by-side with on a Sunday morning. Just as we aren’t meant to stop worshipping once we head home each week, we’re also not meant to stop being the church, and that means continuing to worship together throughout the week, helping each other to grow in confidence, and to rise above the noise.
Last week’s articles all encourage us to do this in some way, living lives of praise and looking to the church for help in that endeavour. I hope that these articles will remind you to love the church, local and universal, with past and present saints to help guide us.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing young men and women discipled within the context of the local church. You can find Adsum through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk and alongside Anna as the co-host of the Consider the Ravens Podcast, you can also find Adsum’s articles for GCD here.
Recently at GCDiscipleship.com
The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#1)
— by Tim Shorey
“I want the kind of faith that says, “Father I don’t know whether I’ll live or die, but I do know that you are God. I know that you love me, watch out for me, and have a plan for me. And I know that you have been my Maker, Provider, Redeemer, Renewer, Keeper, and Promise-keeper for all my days. So no matter what you do, I will trust in you.”
Will God heal? That gets my vote. But if he doesn’t? He will still get my trust.
Hell can do its worst. But God will do what’s best.”
Unrestrained and Inexhaustible: God’s Mercy Toward Sinners and Saints
— by Josh Kubler
“The chief of sinners, a persecutor of the church, and an oppressor of Christians, he had been in desperate need of mercy. [Paul’s] life had been radically transformed by the mercy of God. Paul understood that God’s mercy toward us is not reticent. He doesn’t grant it reluctantly, considering our past rebellion or the degree of our sinfulness. He doesn’t grant it partially, doling it out little by little, waiting to see how we’ll respond before giving us more. On the contrary, God is generous with his riches. Regardless of the state in which we approach the well of his mercy, we all at once may draw bucket-full after bucket-full, for it is impossible to plumb the depths of his mercy!”
The Better Way to Discover Your Spiritual Gifts
— by Lara d’Entremont
“Many of the questions we find on a spiritual gift test are questions we truly can’t ask ourselves. We may enjoy teaching and speaking the truth, but we can’t know how clear our teaching is without others to give us feedback. We may believe we have great intuition on seeing and filling needs around us, but we won’t know how well we serve others unless we hear from them directly. To truly see our giftings, we need others to come alongside us and give us honest critiques and encouragement.”
Poll of the Week
If you voted yes, what would we find you singing?
The GCD Writer’s Guild
Here at GCD, we run a small social network catered to Christian writers. As a writer myself, I know that it can often feel like a thankless and solitary task, and it sometimes leads me to believe the lie I must be the only one experiencing that. If you’re a writer and you feel like that too, the GCD Writer’s Guild is for you. We provide regular writing prompts, we help each other by providing critique, and we champion and cheer on the work of other writers in the Guild. We welcome writers of every level, from communicators who are just getting started to published authors. Our aim is to encourage and help each other in saying what is good, truthful, and beautiful and to create a culture that glorifies Christ. If you’d like to join, or you simply want to know more, click here for more details:
For those of you worried that this is some kind of confession, let me put your worries to rest. My wife was very sick over the weekend and I’m immunocompromised and so we had to sleep separately—not to mention that my wife reportedly decided part-way through the night to sleep across rather than down the bed, so potentially I would have been literally kicked out anyhow!