April 12, 2025
Hello Grace Vineyard family, and friends of Grace.
It’s Saturday afternoon and time for me to send you my weekly update email. I hope you’ve had another great week. I had something special happen to me this week. I met a new friend and got to baptize him in the Ocean just after sunset on Wednesday. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and wonderful. If you’ve never been baptized, I hope you’ll reach out to me or another leader in our church so we can make it happen. (Sometimes we schedule a special day for baptisms, and sometimes we just respond to the request of somebody who’s ready to get baptized). Starting tomorrow we are in the thick of the Easter season with Palm Sunday tomorrow, Good Friday on Friday, and Easter Sunday next Sunday the 20th. Baptism is directly related to everything we remember and celebrate in the Easter season. On Good Friday we remember Jesus dying on the cross for all the sins of the world, and on Easter Sunday morning we celebrate His resurrection which is a foretaste of the resurrection in store for all of us and all of creation in a very literal sense in our future. Baptism memorializes and personalizes the events of Easter week in an individual’s life. The apostle Paul put it this way in his letter to the church at Rome: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:3-4) What an amazing picture of a powerful reality! And what a blessing to participate in a baptism right now in the Easter season.
Launching from that imagery, let me jump right into telling you about what’s coming up in the life of Grace Vineyard in the coming weeks.
The Things We Do For Love
Okay, be honest. When you saw that title did you immediately hear the 10cc song in your head, and your brain started playing the chorus, “…like walking in the rain and the snow/When there’s nowhere to go/When you’re feeling like a part of you is dying/And you’re looking for the answer in her eyes…”? Well, that was my experience when the title came to me. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the day we remember and celebrate what is commonly called Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. Crowds of people are going to lay palm branches on the ground before Jesus, welcoming Him like a king, crying out the words from the messianic psalm, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” But Jesus also knows that within a week he’s going to face a painful betrayal by his closest friends, rejection by the very nation and religious leaders He has come to save, a violent, bloody flogging, the unspeakably brutal execution by Roman crucifixion, and perhaps worst of all, the experience of being forsaken by His heavenly Father. What could possibly motivate Jesus to walk into this vicious death trap on Palm Sunday? The answer is: His love for us. More precisely, following the words of Paul, His love for me! The things we do for love. And then I was thinking about what best motivates us to lay down our lives to worship and serve Jesus and join Him in His mission in the world. I began with the assumption that the answer would be our love for Him, and that we should talk about how to cultivate our love for God so we can be properly motivated. But in my studies in the Bible I found a little bit of a different answer. Check out this verse:
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
It’s not our love that compels us, it’s Christ’s love. Other translations replace “compels” with “controls”. It is Christ’s love that controls us, is how they put it. So our motivation to live completely for Jesus comes from Jesus Himself. It’s not me working hard to cultivate my love for God (which is a good thing, of course, but not the power that sustains us in our life in Christ), but it’s the amazing love of Christ working in me, and through me that sustains me in this life of discipleship, worship, the Great Commission, and all that goes along with this lifestyle. This makes me so grateful and so completely dependent on Jesus, and I think that’s exactly how He intended things to be.
I plan on exploring this truth with you tomorrow morning by opening up the scriptures together. I’m calling this talk, “The Things We Do For Love – how Christ’s love in us is a compelling force, blessing everything in its path”. I hope you’ll be with us at 9:30 tomorrow morning, but if you can’t be here in person, 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.
Last Week’s Sermon
At this point in my weekly emails people have come to expect a link to last week’s sermon. So here you go. We were continuing in our series on God’s Empowering Presence with part 2 of our study on the Gifts of the Spirit. Here it is on our GraceTalks.org podcast:
And here it is on our YouTube channel if you prefer to watch:
After Church Prayer this Sunday, April 13
On the 2nd Sunday of every month, right after church for about 1 hour, we have pray for our City and our Church. I really hope some more of you will step into this vital ministry with us. I cannot emphasize enough how important prayer is for everything we are and everything we do!
Good Friday and Easter Services
Easter Weekend is almost here! On Friday, April 18th, we will be meeting at 6:30 PM for a Good Friday Reflection Service. Then on Sunday morning, we’ll meet as usual at 9:30 for our Resurrection Sunday Service. These are great opportunities to invite friends to come and hear the Gospel!
Mom 2 Mom, Friday, April 25
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 April 25th at 6pm at Grace Vineyard on the terrace for a program that will include sharing a meal, connecting, inspiration and resources. Childcare will be provided- please let Sheri know how many kids/what ages. To find out more, call Sheri Winter at 760.208.8403.
Breath of Heaven Golf Tournament Fund Raiser
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN: Golfing for our Breath of Heaven children at Bear Creek Golf Club – Murrieta, CA
Come May 1, 2025 at 1PM for our Golf Tournament at the exclusive, members-only Bear Creek Golf Course!
Registration is OPEN TODAY! Join us for this special fundraiser benefiting Breath of Heaven Children’s Ministries, supporting orphans in Lusaka, Zambia.
Pricing Options:
Individual Golfer: $199
Foursome Package: $755 (Save $41!)
Dinner-Only: $55
Don’t miss this perfect opportunity to enjoy a spring day on this prestigious PGA course while making a meaningful difference in children’s lives!
Questions Contact Tom LaManna at 951-296-7530 or tom.lamanna@bofheaven.org
Women’s Clothing and Shoes Collection
Family Recovery Center Dinner (FRC) Saturday May 10th
We will be decorating and serving a blessing dinner at the FRC, a residential drug treatment program for moms. We need men to help walk the ladies to dinner and people to bring Italian themed food: pasta dishes, bread, salad. We did this dinner last year and it was loved by the ladies, I hope you’ll join us. For more information, see the sign up table in the lobby or call Kim Ohst 760.519.4558.
National Day of Prayer is May 1st.
Our May 1 Oceanside National Day of Prayer event, from 6:00 – 7:15 pm, will be at the El Corazon Senior Center courtyard. We’ll gather with Christians from all over Oceanside, and be led in prayer by a number of local pastors (including yours truly). I think those of you that were with us last year will agree that it is a really great event. I hope you’ll try to join us.
Steve Rogers’ Mission Trip to Indonesia
Speaking of prayer, Steve Rogers will be leaving for Malaysia and Indonesia on April 28th through May 20th. He will be joined by David Yoder this time. The leader of Vineyard Missions-Asia has asked Steve to do a ground breaking trip for Vineyard Missions in Malaysia — what an honor! This is like reading the book of Acts — Steve and David will be breaking fresh ground walking the streets in prayer, meeting everyone they can, seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance for divine appointments. We need to be praying for the team starting NOW. In Indonesia they will meet up with a couple of young Christians that Steve has been discipling online since his last trip there. They are graduating from the Vineyard Institute in Bekasi, Indonesia, and have invited Steve to come to the graduation. These 2 have asked Steve to come to their home towns to meet their families and friends and pray together about starting Churches there. Prayer is essential for all of this work! In addition, there is a practical way we can join in this missions trip: they need to raise $4,000 by April 15th. To donate either bring an offering to church and write “Steve’s Mission’s Fund on the check memo line or the offering envelope, OR click on this link: Steve’s Missions Fund.
Vineyard National Conference West June 16-20
People from the Vineyard churches all over the United States are getting together this summer for our national conference. There will be a conference on the West side of the country in Denver, Colorado on June 16-20, and there will be one on the East side in Cincinatti, Ohio July 14-17. I am planning on going to the Denver conference, and I’d love it if a bunch of you joined me. There is great programming for the kids too. For all the info, check out it out at https://conference.vineyardusa.org/
Update on Building Funds
I’ve been sharing with you a couple repair needs we have for this wonderful old theater God has blessed us with owning. 1st we need to replace of one of the A/C units for our Youth Room (“The Upper Room”) where our youth and a number of other ministries meet. We’ve been given an estimate of $4,000 to replace the current system with an equally effective mini-split system (which will be the least expensive way to go). So far we’ve received a couple of donations totaling $1,500! We’re making progress. We also talked about needing another $12,000 to repair the giant GRACE sign on the top of our building which will include new LED illuminated channel letters. That’s going to look so good when we complete this project! If you’d like to give an offering for this need, you can use the donation button at the bottom of this letter and just mention “building fund” where you can say what your donation is for. (Btw, remember that diverting your tithe to the building fund doesn’t really help, if that thought crossed your mind!) It takes all of us. Please prayerfully consider giving a one time donation, or even a smaller monthly donation to the building fund until we get these needs met.
And with that, I’ll sign off and get this letter in the mail (so to speak).
I look forward to celebrating the Easter season with you starting tomorrow morning!
With love and blessings,
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.