Grassroots Church | Thunder Bay, Ontario

This week Pastor Keith continues his sermon series on Jesus’s birth and the God-bearing life.  As we journey through advent, with shepherds, peasants, and kings, we follow this  family of Judean priests whose faith in God helped save the world. Keith takes a look at the Magnificat and discerns lessons for our lives as we enter the Christmas season.

This week, Pastor Keith welcomes friend and pastor Justin Simmons to teach as we enter the season of Advent. This ancient tradition of the church allows us to reorient our lives to God and His ways. Last year, Grassroots followed the Magi and the Christmas story in Matthew.  This year, we turn our sight to Luke’s account. John’s life was about preparing the way for Jesus, the righteous King.  Just...

This week, Pastor Keith finishes off our focus on Jesus' healing ministry and the healing ministry he gives to us.  Keith continues to look at John the Baptist's final days and talk about the role of faith in our healing ministries.

Pastor Keith looks at the life of John the Baptist. As a Jewish prophet, John preached a baptism for the forgiveness of sins and died for challenging King Herod’s willful disobedience to God. Through John's example, Keith explores the relationship between healing and obedience - and the role of doubt in our lives.

Pastor Keith continues the series on Jesus, Crowds & Healing by taking a look at the paralytic man in Mark 2 as well as the woman who pours the alabaster oil on Jesus' feet in Luke 7. Please note: There were technical difficulties in recording this message so the message cuts out sporadically.

Pastor Keith begins Part 3 of our year-long series on Jesus with a focus on Jesus’s ministry of healing. He begins by following the connections Jesus made regularly between forgiving of sins and healing.  Jesus' healing ministry demonstrates the nature of his Kingship; dead are raised, lepers cleansed, demons cast out, humans freed for wholeness, community restored.

In part three of our Annual Family Meeting on finance, Pastor Keith looks at Jesus and his admiration for the widow with copper coins.  As he discusses this episode in Jesus’s life, forecasts for us the Grassroots Financial Plan for 2018.

Pastor Keith gives Week 2 of the annual family meeting on finances. He goes through how our community has done this year so far with our pledges, where our money has been concentrated, and how we’ve built for God’s Kingdom.  Keith reminds us that how we use our money has everything to do with how we worship God. He looks at one of the Jesus’s parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16.1-13.

Pastor Keith begins his three week series on Jesus and money by looking at Jesus' teaching on money in Luke 12. In his ministry, we observe Jesus intentionally choosing a life of poverty, perhaps to make some sort of point, and having little regard for currency in paper or coin.  He also warns us that money wants our devotion.

Pastor Keith continues to help us get oriented to Jesus, to him as he was, in his first-century context.  So far, we've read about Jesus, the boy in Nazareth, in love with the Passover, His God, the Jewish scriptures.  We've seen him amaze wise scholars as a 12 year old and infuriate his townspeople as an adult with with same penetrating love for the Old Testament.  We've seen him stake a platform...

The real Jesus, the one who came as King, disturbs us a little.  To know Him is to know the Palestinian Jew who lived 2,000 years ago. And to know Him is to befriend Truth, Grace, the greatest Treasure, his suffering, the power of resurrection, and the Great Shepherd.  To know Him is also to understand His unexpected view of God.  Pastor Keith explains why the crowd in Luke 4 were so delighted wit...

Pastor Keith emerges into Jesus's life by surveying some biographical information about him and talking about intimacy with him. Keith looks at the implications on our lives as we seek to understand Jesus's family, personality, destiny, spirituality, and childhood experiences.

Pastor Keith introduces his year long series on Following Jesus with a special Fall Kick Off at Grassroots.  Jesus is portrayed in culture in all sorts of ways - guru, warrior, hippy, stoic, etc. But Jesus was more than all of these things - the scriptures reveal Jesus as King. This is why the Pharisees were so disturbed by Jesus and ultimately why his own people rejected him. Jesus’s claim to Lor...

Pastor Keith closes the series on the Church and the Kingdom by considering how one of the key distinctives that set the early church apart was the practice of meeting in each others' homes. Keith takes a look at what he envisions small groups to look like for Grassroots, starting this fall. Note: this message was cut off at the beginning! First 10 minutes is missing :(

This Sunday, Pastor Keith turns our attention to the first two activities of the church, of these main four: devoting ourselves to the Apostles’ teachings, prayer, breaking bread in one another’s homes, and meeting as many needs as possible.

Pastor Keith focuses in on his teaching about unity in the church and honouring one another. What do you think Paul's point is in 11.27 to eat the bread and drink the cup worthily?  Why does Paul want people to take the communion together?  What experiences of disunity have you seen in your church experience?  Where have you seen radical unity and honour in church? Take a moment to journal through...

Pastor Keith explores how preaching and healing are the two main tasks of the church by looking specifically at Paul’s metaphor of the body and how each play a role in this work as the body of Christ.  Where do you see our church working together as a body? Where does it have room to grow in unity? What are your gifts, and where are you plugging in as we seek to heal the people of Thunder Bay and...

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to be disillusioned with the Church - and ignoring this or denying it is just not intellectually honest. Christians have historically not done a very good job of handling this responsibility handed us by Jesus. However, the church is still worth fighting for and, in fact, there are some excellent reasons to continue to be inspired by the church, work within th...

Pastor Keith takes a look back at the ups and downs of our first year with the Jagger family leading our community.

Pastor Keith continues his series about Moses and love by discussing forms of perfect love and how we can practice that in our lives.