Transcript:

Hi folks – my name’s Steve Bill, and I’m the new pastor here at Grassroots Church in Thunder Bay. Our community has been in a state of, well, upheaval over the past year or two and as we’re starting the fall, I thought I’d provide a brief update on the status of Grassroots Church and a sort of 30,000’ look at where we’re headed – both for the sake of those within our community but also for those outside who may have heard rumblings here and there and have been curious about what actually IS going on with our church community!

We’ll begin with this building. I’m currently sitting at 1250 Balmoral but this space now belongs to Lac Des Mille lacs First Nation. In April, Lac Des Mille Lac purchased this building and immediately began renovating this space, transforming it into a junior high school. Part of this deal was to allow us continued use of the space for Sundays, Monday and Wednesday evenings for a year. During the renos, our community has been meeting either right here or, during the summer, in our backyard – and if you’ve joined us at all, I’m sure you can attest that there’s been a real “familial” vibe to these gatherings.

Also in April of this year, the contract for our interim pastor, Steve Mills came to an end. We are so grateful for the service he and his wife Annette have provided our community as we navigated this interim period. Okay, so then I think it was in May that I was appointed to take on the pastor role for Grassroots. I officially began this role as the full-time Lead & Teaching pastor on August 20 and Sherilyn Lucyk was hired to serve as our administrator. So we’re just getting started here!

Oh and one more thing happened in April. Or May. Somewhere around there. Grassroots joined a really exciting network of churches called the Jesus Collective. I won’t get into here but you should definitely check out jesuscollective.org to learn more about. Suffice to say, joining this network has helped us figure out much of who we are and what our core convictions are in matters of theological influence. Without getting into the nitty gritty about Jesus Collective, I’ll say this: now more than ever we see the value of placing Jesus at the centre of our theology, our understanding of scripture, how we understand God and how we love one another. Articulating these truths has profound implications for our church and if you’re looking to dive deeper into this then I invite you to visit us in-person on Sunday mornings.

Okay, this has been a bit long winded. If you’re still tracking here, thanks. But let’s wrap this up. What’s next? Where do we go from here as a community? Well, throughout this fall we will be wrestling together as we discern what God is specifically calling Grassroots Church to take on in Thunder Bay. Our mission remains to cover the earth with the selfless love of Jesus and we do this through 3 main pillars: shaping bright disciples, restoring faith and sheltering the vulnerable. Figuring out the specifics of what this all could look like in this next chapter for Grassroots will help inform what kind of physical space we should be looking to inhabit as we move forward. These are exciting times for the Grassroots community and you’re more than welcome to be a part of it! Whether you’re currently attending, formerly attending or are just randomly seeing this in your newsfeed and curious to learn more, come on out Sundays at 10am and we’ll dive into this together.

Thanks for your time and if you’ve got questions or want to chat, you can usually find me working at the Habit throughout the week or just shoot me an email. God bless.