January 3, 2025
Happy New Year, Grace Vineyard Family and Friends!
I’m writing this on Friday night, January 3rd, but I won’t send out the text notification for reading it until Saturday morning cuz I don’t want to making your phones ding with text messages on Friday night.
This was a fairly short work week for many, if not most, of us because New Years Eve fell on Tuesday and New Years Day on Wednesday. I hope you got a lot of rest and are now ready to launch into a new year. If you’ve been following my emails, you know the Ohst household is in a lot of exciting activity and transition this season. Bryce and I had our “80th” birthday party the first weekend of December (he turned 20 and I turned 60), our daughter Charissa graduated from grad school on the 2nd weekend of December, Christmas came after the 3rd weekend, New Years came after the 4th weekend, and just 2 more weeks from Sunday, on January 19th, I’ll be the father of the bride for Charissa’s and Stephen’s wedding! It’s all very exciting and wonderful, but when I take off my suit coat and tie the evening of the 19th, I bet I’ll sit quietly and contemplate the seasons of life for a while. And I’ll smile. And maybe shed a few tears. And I’ll be grateful, so grateful, to a God who has been with us every step of this journey, through the highs and the through the lows, always present, always loving, always guiding, always giving the greatest gift of all – His “I am with you.” You might not be experiencing quite as much activity in your life this season, but I hope you too can take some moments to pause and reflect on the Nearness of God.
We have chosen the theme “Enlarging our Hearts” for the next 4 Sundays of biblical training and equipping.
Most of us will have encountered Dr. Seuss’ “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas”, either in book or movie form, so we get that picture of a heart growing. And if you haven’t encountered that one, you’ve probably read or seen a movie version of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”, and watched the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge’s heart as it enlarged with love and compassion. Those two classic stories do, in my opinion, a great job engaging our hearts and minds around the crucially important concept of growing in love and compassion for what God holds so dear in His heart of love — the people of this world. “For God so loved the world, that he gave…” begins perhaps the best known Bible verse in the world. This coming Sunday, or own Sharon M., who is a really gifted teacher will be bringing the first of our talks – “Enlarge Our Hearts”. Prepare to be inspired and challenged as we open the Word together.
The occasion is “Missions Month”, but please don’t think this topic is only for people traveling to far away places. This is for all of us who follow Jesus, and in doing so follow Him into His mission of redeeming our world. And for that, I need, we need, to have our hearts enlarged! I’ll see you on Sunday morning at 9:30 for our first Sunday of the New Year. If you can’t be with us in person on Sunday, here’s the link for the Zoom channel: Zoom Meeting ID 153 112 432, Passcode 684814, and here’s where you would go for the Facebook Live channel: facebook.com/gracevcf.
If you’d like to catch last week’s sermon, you can watch right here on our Youtube Channel:
By the way, if you click at the bottom of that video on the YouTube icon, it will open up the video on the YouTube website where you can click on the “subscribe” button so you can more easily find all the Grace Vineyard sermons, as well as be notified every time a new one is posted.
Monthly Ladies Walk/Hike Next Saturday
Next Saturday, January 11th, is the 2nd Saturday of the month, and that means it’s time for the first Ladies Hike/Walk of the new year. Ladies, if you’ve never gone on one of these, I would really encourage you to start out the new year by joining in. What a great way to enjoy fellowship with your Grace Vineyard sisters while taking in some of the most beautiful outdoor areas in the world! You’ll meet at the Batiquitos Lagoon Nature Center (7380 Gabbiano Lane, Carlsbad) at 9am on Saturday morning for a beautiful walk around the Carlsbad Lagoon. Please let Kathy Green know if you plan to attend 760.583.1779.
Monthly Men’s Breakfast Next Saturday
Next Saturday will also bring our first Men’s Breakfast of the new year. We have such a great group of guys. Men – if you’ve never joined us, I’ll say the same thing I said to the ladies — I really encourage you to start out the New Year by getting together with your Grace Vineyard brothers. We’ll have a delicious breakfast of eggs, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, juice, and coffee; we’ll worship together; we’ll be inspired by a talk from our own Christian Twombly; and probably most importantly, we’ll build each other up with great fellowship. We meet at Ty’s Burgerhouse at 515 Mission Avenue, just around the corner from the church at 8am on Saturday, January 11th. I hope to see you there.
The Men’s Retreat Is On the Calendar!
Also Men, I want to let you know that we are going to have a Men’s Retreat at Palomar Christian Conference Center on Palomar Mountain March 14-16.
Men, do me a favor and put this in your phone’s calendar right now – Men’s Retreat, March 14-16, 2025. We’ve booked the coolest retreat center in San Diego. The photo above is from Palomar Christian Conference Center’s webpage, and show’s somebody on the zip line. There’s also 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….oh yeah, can’t forget that their food is the best. Our men’s retreats at PCCC have always been amazing, 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 $250, and the Hotel Style rooms will cost $300. This will include all the food for the weekend too. See Snake for more more information. You can contact him via text at (760) 622-4572, email him at rertel777@gmail.com , or better yet, find him on Sunday morning. And to make it easy to pay, our church office will let us pay monthly – if you pay $30/week starting this Sunday, you’ll be able to pay for the entire registration by the first week in March. (That’s 9 weeks, so you’d save $270 by the first week in March…you get the idea). When you put money in the offering or give online, just put “Men’s Retreat” on the memo line of your check, or on the offering envelope, or in the online giving where you can specify what the payment is for. This is going to be an AWESOME Spring!
And that’s it for this week’s update. I look forward to another great year of life and ministry together on Mission with each of you in 2025.
With blessings and love to each,
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.