Grassroots Church | Thunder Bay, Ontario

Words in the Dark: Part 4 – By the Rivers of Babylon

This week we open up Psalms 136 and 137 to see the ranges of emotions expressed by the Psalmists and why simple praying opens us up to the heart of God like nothing else. God doesn’t want our pious words without heart. In this sermon we move deeper into the simply human praying that resets us in dependence upon God’s presence, guides us into our feelings, humanity, and desires, and teaches us to live with all of these in losses of life, in joy, trusting that our times are in God’s hands. Turning to Psalm 22 and Jesus’s choice of Psalm 22 for his cross Psalm, we finish our first look in the Psalms, God’s presence, and Christian praying by taking a final look at praying simply and praying when God seems absent. Expressing our full range of emotions when God is silent helps feed us in a life full of loss . Deep, authentic prayer fuels us in our lives with hope and helps us to live and encourage our alternative Christian worldview.

Words in the Dark: Part 3 – Abandoned

Turning to Psalm 22 and Jesus' choice of Psalm 22 for his cross Psalm, we tap into a second powerful theme of the Psalms: God's silence. Although we must come to God with all of our childish needs, we cannot enter into the heart of God with our entitlements and demands.

Words in the Dark: Part 2 – Poor and Needy

As we continue our series on Christian praying, we tap into one of the most powerful themes in the Psalms: being poor and need. Entering deeper into Psalm 23 and 24 we see how God will not allow us to approach him arrogantly. Pride shuts down the pathway to the heart of God. Exploring simple prayer, authentic prayer, and need prayer, we happily leave behind any forms of religious prayer based on arrogance.

The Voice of Creation: Eyes Open

In our second-to-last sermon in this series on the voice of creation, we take a look at Jesus’s response to human pride and the anxious lifestyles borne of self-sufficiency. In his great teaching in Matthew 6, Jesus reminds us to open our eyes and ears to creation and remember from their testimony that we are dependent, needy, and provided for God. In this simple but challenging call to seek God’s Kingdom first, we see just how important relating with God’s community of creation is for the health of our faith.

The Voice of Creation: Job Transformed

As we continue our summer series on the voice of creation, we turn to Job’s encounter with the created world. In Chapters 38-42, we watch as Job is transformed by opening his eyes to the creatures as they really are, not as Job and his friends have imagined them. They have a dignity that is completely unrelated to their domination of animals. As Job opens his mind and heart to the world around him, we watch him turn from despair to hope and from anxious patriarch to a warm father.

The Voice of Creation: The Creation Narratives as Our Birth Story

Carolyn Whatley shares this week's message continuing the series on hearing the Voice of Creation. Insights are shared from the perspective of seeing the creation stories of Genesis as a birth story from a loving Father.

The Voice of Creation: Hope and the Groaning of Creation

This week, we continue to explore scripture’s view of nature.  Exploring Paul’s teaching in Romans 8, Pastor Keith continues to challenge us to wake up--and open up-- to the voice of creation.  When we do, we learn that the future hope of bodily resurrection for humanity is the future hope of all species. All species await freedom from death and decay. Non-human nature groans, eagerly awaiting new creation and plays a surprising role in God’s long story––as the people of God learn to wake up from prideful patterns of domination.  

The Voice of Creation: Two Voices

This week, Pastor Keith launches a series on scripture’s view of creation.  Opening up Psalm 19, we learn that there are two voices (Torah and creation) testifying to God’s character and drawing us into the wider community of worship. The sun, the Psalmist––and later Jesus––tells us teaches us that God is strong, he is wise, he is joyful, he is abundantly merciful, he loves his enemies and blesses them despite their evil.  Therefore, while Christians should not worship creation, we also should not dominate it. We are to care for it. What’s more, if we are going to be deeply Christian people, we must come to revere the creation. See in it something sacred. And somehow to decrease our senses of pride-fulness and domineering tendencies.

Transforming Worship 4: Corporate Worship

In this final of four sermons on worship Pastor Jenn Swift speaks about the worshipping community. This is when worship moves completely out of I and into We. Like a massive rock concert, it doesn't matter whether I join in or not, but that doesn't make you insignificant. While God may bless us individually by being part of the body, corporate worship leads us to be forgetful of ourselves and reminds us that we are part of a much bigger community historically, globally, and eternally.  Corporate worship is where God makes a change in US, BECAUSE we are gathered and turned towards Him.

Transforming Worship 3: Public Worship

In this third of four sermons on worship Pastor Jenn Swift encourages us to take our private worship of God public.   We turn our affections to God in as we share love; we turn our hearts to God despite disappointments. And we learn to focus on Him and not constantly demand that He focus on us. With a story about singing a creation hymn loudly at a tourist waterfall destination, Pastor Jenn suggest that having a private life with God without a public life is like having a secret boyfriend or a friend you are ashamed of. We cannot simply take our current lives and squeeze Jesus in; if we want worship to be transformative, we must rebuild our life around God. If we do, then public worship will be as natural as going out in public with our closest friends and family.