Grassroots Church | Thunder Bay, Ontario

Words in the Dark II: Part 2 – Zechariah’s Prayer

This week we delve deeper into Luke's Nativity story and see just how Psalm-saturated Zechariah's prayer actually is. With a look into Psalm 72, we see Solomon's prayer, hundreds of years before Jesus, for an heir who would free people to worship God with purity of heart. Solomon prayed that Jesus would help make people whole and poised and marked by peace. Finishing with a focus on Zechariah's hope for his people lost in the shadow of death, Pastor Keith invites us to delve into the Psalms and sow them into the soil of our hearts.

Words in the Dark II: Part 1 – Mary’s Prayer

Kicking off our Advent series on the prayers of the nativity, we follow Mary, Jesus's mother, to the country estate of her elder cousin Elizabeth. Here she composes here nativity psalm, fashioned after Psalm 103 and other Jewish prayers. We find ourselves challenged again to enter into Christmastime prepared and our hearts filled with praises and psalms.

Words in the Dark: Part 12 – The Final Obstacles to Praying: Can God hear YOU?

Finishing off a season of sermons on praying, we take a look at Psalm 139 and its teaching on God's nearness to us. Delving into the Psalms, we find that prayer matters: scriptures tell us, Jesus thinks so, and experience suggests it. Prayer is not something we evolve out of; it is something we mature into and is a significant tool in our mission to help undo death.

Words in the Dark: Part 11 – Obstacles to Prayer Part I

In the first of two parts in our next section on prayer, Pastor Keith talks about God's closeness to us, and how pain in our lives causes us slowly to shift God further away from us, in our perspectives. This shift causes us to ask if prayer really makes a difference, if after all, are we not too small to matter, and if praying really changes anything other than our perspectives.

Words in the Dark: Part 9 – Unanswered Prayer

Ryan Whatley shares his perspective on wrestling with unanswered prayer, the process of healing and moving toward God in the midst of our pain.

Words in the Dark: Part 10 – The Habit of Prayer and the Heart of God

We know what's needed to pray regularly so why don't we? One of the reasons is because our lives don't reflect need for prayer. The pattern of scripture suggests that when we live in pursuit of the things God loves and despise the things he despises, the disorientation that ensues will force us into intimacy with the Father.

Words in the Dark: Part 8 – Obstacles to Prayer

Using Psalm 118, Pastor Keith explores being hard pressed and how most everybody resorts to prayer when desperate. He explores how as we encounter some of the great obstacles to prayer, our default mode is often self-reliance, rather than prayer.

Words in the Dark: Part 7 – Praying with Your Spouse

As we finish off our mini-series on the Psalms and praying with others, Pastor Keith turn to Psalm 45 and discusses the centrepiece of any marriage: prayer. Keith explores how praying with a spouse may be more intimate than sex.

Words in the Dark: Part 6 – Praying with Children

Pastor Keith continues our mini-series on Praying in Community, focusing specifically on praying with children and providing practical advise on how to pray with kids from the Psalms. He looks at the role of the family in the life of prayer, Why God wants us to tell of Him to generations to come and asks what does this mean for our family prayers?

Words in the Dark: Part 5 – In the Presence of His People

This week we begin a small sermon series on praying in community and why communal prayer is so important in developing a prayer life. Pastor Keith looks at how praying with family and friends can guide us into the heart of God even when we cannot get there on our own.