Grassroots Church | Thunder Bay, Ontario

Transforming Worship 2: Private Worship

In this second of four sermons on worship, Pastor Jenn Swift discusses private worship and how a worshipping life without the private sphere is like only going on dates with God every once in a while; or worse, like showing up to the same party every week as God and that's it.  That's be a pretty shallow relationship.  Our common life in worship, on Sunday mornings for example, will be determined the quality of our private lives of worship. Opening our whole hearts to God, these are the qualities that we want to see growing in our private lives of worship: honesty, humility, reverence, sacrifice, sincerity, vulnerability, transformative, focused on God.

Transforming Worship 1: Worship with our Hearts & Affections

Pastor Jenn Swift introduces a four-part series on worship––private, public, and corporate. Jumping off with Isaiah 29:13 "These people honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me", we explore how to turn our hearts and affections to God as relational beings, in all our dimensions. Worship starts with the Almighty, and not us, and this leads us to ask "how do You, God, want me to honour you today with my life?" And though we learn through practice what of the three spaces we are most comfortably worshipping God in, we learn to relate with God when nobody else is looking, when others may be peering in, and as a corporate group.

Devotion to Jesus Part 2: Contemporary Devotion to Jesus

In this final conclusion to our year with Jesus, we take one more look at devotion to Jesus. His final living apostle, John, abandoned to exile, writes the book of Revelation based on a series of visions with his Lord.  Pastor Keith briefly shares the fate of each of the disciples, looking once more at Jesus’s call to self-sacrificial love.

Devotion to Jesus – Part 1: Ancient Devotion to Jesus

The first of a two part series concluding our year with Jesus. We are left with one compelling invitation: devotion to Jesus. Paul becomes one of the first to realize just how deep the this goes. Starting with Jesus' own claim that he is the bridegroom, Pastor Keith provides three stories from church history of people who have embraced devotion to Jesus as a spiritual marriage.

Intimacy with the Father – and the Idols that Get in the Way

The Resurrected Jesus – Part 5: The Promise of Power and Comfort

When Jesus ascends into Heaven, his Spirit returns (disguised, unseen, powerful) and has been hard at work for more than 2,000 years ever since. As Jesus's promised eternal presence, the Holy Spirit comes in the form of a descending flame. And then all heaven breaks loose. Pastor Keith explores the connection between the Spirit and obedience.

The Resurrected Jesus – Part 4: Your Church Calling

Before he ascends to heaven, after spending time in Jerusalem with his disciples, Jesus takes one final journey to his home region of Galilee. In the context of Jesus' famous conversation with Peter in which he asks him to lead his sheep, Pastor Keith assesses what it looks like when church is seen as a product rather than a calling, begging the question each of us must answer: to what church are you called to belong to?

The Resurrected Jesus – Part 3: Faith, Doubt, and Sacred Community

After he was raised from the dead, after the women encountered the angelic message, Jesus appeared first to the women, then to two disciples who were leaving town dejected, and then Peter. Then Jesus appeared to the rest of the 11 disciples and then to many more of his followers. This week, Pastor Keith focuses on his appearance to the 11 disciples together, behind closed doors.

The Resurrected Jesus – Part 2: The New Garden

It is Sunday. Two days after Jesus died. It’s early. The sun is coming up. The women, as they get to the empty tomb get the biggest shock of their life: an angel appears and gives them a mission. Then Jesus himself, resurrected appears to them.

The Resurrected Jesus – Part 1: The Empty Tomb

Pastor Keith focuses on the women disciples visiting the empty tomb at sunrise on the day after the Sabbath. He considers how if God's mission is to undo death, the resurrection should shape our passion for this mission.