January 17, 2026
Happy Saturday, Grace Vineyard family and friends of Grace Vineyard.
I hope you are enjoying our Sundays together this month as much as I am. I think it was only last year that I began using a simple 2 word phrase to describe a vision for our life in Christ – “Love Well”. As apprentices of Jesus we are learning from Him the really simple and profound truth that we fulfill all of the biblical instructions for living a flourshing life when we become the kind of people who love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves – love well. So when we began this month of global missions focus with the theme “Compelled by His Love”, it felt so natural and comfortable. Our first Sunday with Sharon M was so inspirational for me. I just listened to her message again this week. Last Sunday with Sam Cerny was really eye opening about how we can “enter the arena” with simplicity of prayer. His stories we’re amazing. I’ll drop the YouTube video and Gracetalks.org podcast for them right here in case you’d like to listen in again too (GraceTalks podcast is only available for Sharon M’s talk at this time):
Week 3 – The Transforming Power of Christ’s Love
This Sunday I’m bringing the message for the 3rd week of our series, and I’m calling it “The Transforming Power of Love”. Christ’s love is more than a feeling, Christ’s love is substantive – it can be “poured into” us as Paul wrote in Romans 5:5: (“God has poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit”). We are not only transformed by Christ’s Love, we become conduits and reservoirs of Christ’s love so that we can pour that same love out on others. As we were preparing for this week’s talk, we asked a few different folks who have worked in missions in some hard places to send us a short video offering their perspective on what it means to them to be compelled by Christ’s love, and I’ll be featuring some of their video moments in my talk tomorrow.
Noel Isaacs from Nepal Sharing Sunday Night at 6pm
Several months ago I was at a Vineyard Pastors meeting where we had a special guest from Nepal sharing with us. He was fascinating. I learned that there is a region in the Himalayas that is for the first time in history right now the center of a church planting movement, and can you believe it — it’s primarily a movement of Vineyard church plants. The guy speaking was from Nepal and his name is Noel Isaacs. I asked the leader of the meeting if Noel would be back in the U.S. in January cuz we’d love to have him speak at Grace Vineyard, and a few weeks ago I found out he is going to be here, and we do get to host him on January 18th for an evening meeting. I would recommend you purchase his book Ordinary People, Exraordinary God, to hear about his amazing story. Even more, please make plans to join us on this coming Sunday Night, January 18th, at 6pm!
International Potluck Sunday January 25
It’s an annual tradition! Every year at the end of January’s focus on Global Missions, we have an international Potluck. This is your opportunity to pull out that favorite recipe that features a dish from another part of the world. It is coming up fast – next Sunday – so PLEASE sign up in the lobby to bring food and help with preparations for this event. See Sharon E. for more information.
It’s Time To Renew our Global Missions Commitments
Every year we refresh our commitment to Global Missions both as a corporate congregation and individually. A number of you committed last year to pray for our missionaries and a number of you commited to participate financially in supporting our missionaries around the globe. Our 2025 commitments are now complete, so we are asking everybody to pray about committing to missions for 2026. That means that we hope, but do NOT assume, that you will be continuing your commitment from last year. We are collecting new commitments for financial support this month. At the end of the month we will see what the individual financial pledges are and then we will inform the missionaries we support what we plan on sending every month to support their work. Now, as a pastor of a missions focused church, I want you to know that it is my hope and vision for every person who calls Grace Vineyard their home to join the team, no matter how small or large your commitment. I know from experience that if you commit to only, say, $10 per month, your heart will follow your money (as Jesus said it would), and you will be thinking about and praying for our missionaries.
We’ll have a paper form like the one you see in this graphic available Sunday morning, and we also have a digital version that you can get to by clicking here: Missions Pledge Form or you can use the QR code in the graphic above. I already filled out my family’s pledge form online, and I hope you’ll consider doing that right now.
Prayer After Church This Sunday
After Sam Cerny’s talk last week, I’m definitely freshly awakened to the power of prayer! Tomorrow after church we’ll have 1 hour to make our requests known to God about anything and everything on our hearts. We’ll have lists of specific prayer topics, but there are no limits. And you’re welcome to come for as little or as long as you want – the meeting will only last an hour, but everyone is free to leave whenever they need to. It will be on the terrace at the back of the theater.
MOM 2 MOM January 23
Are you a mom in need of support from other moms? Or are you a mom who has been there and wants to lend your support to others? Then you are welcome to Mom 2 Mom, a peer to peer and mentoring group designed to uplift, enrich, share and connect moms. We’ll gather Friday, January 23rd at 6pm at Grace Vineyard on the terrace for a program that will include sharing a meal, connecting, inspiration and help with budgeting and finances. Childcare will be provided- please let Sheri know how many kids/what ages. To find out more, call Sheri Winter at 760-208-8403.
Men – Mark Your Calendars, Men’s Retreat is March 27-29
Men, join us at Palomar Christian Conference Center on Palomar Mountain for our 2026 Men’s Retreat, March 27-29. We’ve booked the coolest retreat center in San Diego. Palomar has lots of activities for our free time: zip line, skeet shooting with shot guns, horseback riding, hiking trails, rifle range, archery, paintball, and more. And it’s in a beautiful mountain retreat. If you’ve never been, check out their webpage at palomar.camp. And that’s just the location. We’ll also have amazing times of worship, teaching, prayer. Our men’s retreats at PCCC have always been awesome, and I’m so glad we’ll be returning in the Spring. They having 2 styles of housing accommodations – dorm rooms and hotel style. The Dorm Rooms will cost $230, and the Hotel Style rooms will cost $285. This will include all the food for the weekend too. See Steve Rogers for more more information. You can contact him via text at (760) 500-4324, email him at or srogers@gracevcf.org. To make it easy for everyone, you can pay the entire registration fee any time now, or you can make smaller payments every week/month and we’ll save it up for you. If you’re ready, here’s where you can pay online:
And that’s it for this week’s update. Have a great rest of your Saturday, and I’ll see you in the morning.
with blessings and love,
Ron Ohst
Tithes and Offerings Online
THANKS for taking ownership in the life and ministry of Grace Vineyard! And thanks to all of you who are stepping into a lifestyle of generosity with your tithes and offerings. It really does take all of us doing our part with the income God has entrusted to us for His church. If you’d like to give your tithe or offering online, click the donate button below. If you’re giving to a specific fund (like benevolence or missions), just be sure to say that when you are given an option to add a note with your donation.