Weekly Update 06-14-2025

June 14, 2025

Happy Saturday, Grace Vineyard Family and Friends.

I know I pretty regularly say something about how wonderful our Oceanside weather is, but Oh My Goodness is today a beautiful day!  I snapped this picture really quickly this morning while a group of us were out for a Jesus Walk.  It was a perfect Day.  And a busy day.  I started at the Men’s Breakfast at 8am, which was awesome!  And I hear that the ladies had a wonderful time on their monthly walk, this month at Guajome park.  And then a group of us went on a Jesus Walk to encounter people around pier area.  That was followed by a group of people meeting at Tyson Park for a BBQ, celebrating a young couple who were formerly homeless, but now are living in their new home, sober, and celebrating their new baby.  We are indeed a blessed people.  We individually and together had so many wonderful encounters with each other and new friends along the way today.  As the summer progresses and the paradisiacal (yes, that’s a real word, and means paradise-like, just like you thought it did) weather draws us outside, we’ll take the opportunity to initiate many “holy hello’s” and enter into Jesus conversations with folks around town.

Experiencing God Our Father

While I’m not an expert on world religions, the tiny bit of research I’ve done confirms my understanding that one of the very unique features of the Christian Faith is the revelation of God as a perfect, loving, intimately relational, Father.  There is really nothing like the foundational, internal strength we can experience when we experience God Our Father.  One of the many fascinating things Jesus taught was that “no one comes to The Father except through me.” (John 14:6).  That tells us that one of Jesus’ primary purposes is to lead us to the Father; to experiencing God as Father in the many ways that Jesus both modeled and taught. Jesus revealed the Father and then He leads us to the Father so we can also experience the life-giving power of that relationship.  Tomorrow, on Father’s Day, I’m going to explore how we experience God as our Father, what that means, and how we can enter more fully into that relationship.  I hope you can all join us at Grace Vineyard tomorrow at 9:30am, but if you are unable to be here in person, you can join us online on Zoom with this link: Zoom Meeting ID  153 112 432, Passcode 684814.  You can also find our livestream on Facebook Live at facebook.com/gracevcf.

Last week I was at the Canyon Vineyard and our own Sharon Mitchell brought a message called “Abide”, back here in Oceanside.  If you’d like to hear her again, here’s a link to her sermon on our YouTube channel:

No Sunday Night Service on Father’s Day

Please note that we will not be having Sunday Night service on Father’s Day.  We’ll be back together on June 22nd.

 Friday Night Small Group on Break until July 11th

Please also note the Friday Night Small group that meets in the Upper Room is on a short break until July 11.  The group will resume on July 11th.  Our other groups will continue to meet as usual.

Ladies Retreat November 14-16th at Pine Valley