December 20, 2024
Dear Grace Vineyard Family and Friends,
Merry Christmas to all of you! This coming Sunday will be the 4th and final Sunday of Advent. We’ve already spent some time contemplating the themes of Hope, Peace, and Joy as we remember the 1st advent of Jesus and look with anticipation to His 2nd advent. (Remember, advent means the coming or arrival of an important person or event.)
Last weekend I was in Los Angeles for our daughter Charissa’s graduation from Azusa Pacific University with her masters in education. Yay Charissa! That graduation marks the completion of years of preparation for her upcoming career as a high school English teacher, and marks the beginning of her last month being single … she and her fiancé Stephen will be married on January 19th. So this is quite a special year for our family. We had a wonderful weekend. While I was away, Grace Vineyard was blessed to have our own Matt Evans bring the message on Advent Joy. You can watch that right here on our YouTube channel:
This coming Sunday I plan on finishing out our Advent series with a talk on Advent Love.
Think about this idea: before the birth of Jesus, the world had never experienced a truly loving person (in the fullest sense of love as only God can express it). Advent literally brought love into the world! Here’s how the beloved apostle John wrote about it:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:7-12)
And then when we read these inspired words from the book of Hebrews, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:3), we get the theme of Advent Love – starting with the birth of Jesus, God has revealed true love to our world, and His plan is to continue to reveal that love throughout the world through every disciple of Jesus (to repeat the verse from 1 John, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.“)
That’s the theme we’ll be exploring together on Sunday morning. I hope you’ll all be there with us! 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.
Christmas Dinner at San Diego Rescue Mission, December 21
I am very excited to let you all know that we are going to start serving at the San Diego Rescue Mission in Oceanside every month starting December 21st. This month, we will be providing a very special Christmas Dinner. VERY IMPORTANT: if you are planning to join us, you’ll need to sign up with the Rescue Mission beforehand by clicking on this link: https://sdrescue.vomo.org/opportunity/christmas-meal-onc.
Here’s the details for this month: We are providing Christmas dinner at San Diego Rescue Mission at 3131 Oceanside blvd, Oceanside on December 21st.
- Check in / drop off 3:00-3:30pm
- We will be providing sides for the meal and deserts
- Hot chocolate bar
- Craft- decorating stocking’s and filling stockings with candy
- Door prizes- gift baskets
- Aprox. 55 people
- We need cups for hot chocolate
- Some more sides
- Deserts
- Monetary donations welcome
- Sign up we’ll be at the table in back
- Also to drop off any of the commitments for the above
Contact Venita Ibarra if you need any more info at (760) 573-4429.
Christmas Party Potluck, This Sunday December 22
We’re gonna have an all church Christmas Party Potluck this coming Sunday night, December 22nd. If you haven’t let Kathy Green know what you are planning on bringing, please call or text her at 760-583-1779. There’s nothing quite like sharing a meal together, especially during Christmas season!
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
On December 24 we will gather at 5pm for a brand new Christmas Celebration. Our service this year is titled “Christmas Letters” and will be themed around the “letters” we have received over the years through God’s Word, our own reflections, poems and song, all telling us the Great Christmas story. We’ll end the evening singing “Silent Night” by Candle Light, and it is always a beautiful moment.
We’ll keep it short, aiming to finish the service by 6:00. After the service we’ll have Christmas cookies and hot apple cider. Christmas Eve at Grace Vineyard is always wonderful event to invite friends to, so spread the word.
Christmas Cookies Needed!
Did you catch that part about Christmas cookies? That’s where you come in – we need lots of people to bring a couple dozen of their favorite Christmas Cookies. Please help us plan by letting us know what you will be brining: text us your plans at 760-754-2974, or email us at info@gracevcf.org. Thank you so much! Your baking adds such a special touch to this beautiful evening.
Christmas Benevolence Offering
This is our last weekend before Christmas, and that means the time has come for our end of the year donations. Some of you have already given significant end of the year offerings, and we are so appreciative of your generosity! These are the 4 specific areas we are targeting:
- Christmas Benevolence — helping those in need, especially single moms and widows this Christmas. Our benevolence fund was empty a few weeks ago, but our church family is coming through! Help us finish strong by clicking here – Christmas Benevolence Gifts – to donate.
- Missions — Every year we invite people to commit to give monthly for one year to support our missionaries. We add up those commitments and set a budget for missions (with a reserve pad), letting our missionaries know how much they can expect to receive from us. The commitments have fallen short and our missions fund has almost run dry. Click here – Missions Donations – to donate to our missionaries.
- Special Building Project – our giant GRACE sign is in serious need of refurbishing. We have a team who has spent a lot of time researching the best and most cost-effective ways to address the sign project. We have already received one large donation for the project, but we still need about $12,000 to complete the job. Click here – Building Fund – to donate to our building fund so we can refurbish the sign.
- Taking care of our local church – this is where the tithe (giving 10% of our income) comes in. Tithing pays for ongoing operational costs like insurance, electricity, gas, water, mortgage, staff salary (3 full time and 2 part time), office supplies, etc. Our general fund was also very low a couple weeks ago, but that has started to turn around with your end of the year donations so far this month. That’s good news, but we haven’t completely turned this ship around yet, so we’re hoping everyone who calls Grace Vineyard their home will do their part — to give general tithes and offerings click here – General Donations
Thank you for all you are doing in prayer and generosity to take care of these needs. The Lord is FAITHFUL! He always has been, and He always will be.
I’ll see some of you Saturday at the Navigation Center (San Diego Rescue Mission in Oceanside), and the rest of you on Sunday morning. Richest blessings to you all!
With love,
Ron Ohst
