June 16, 2023
Hello Grace Vineyard and Friends!
Happy Friday to you. The official start of summer is still 5 days away on June 21st, but today it felt like summer has arrived! I was outside at noon today, and “June Gloom” was nowhere to be seen. For our household the beginning of summer means two graduations and the beginning of the Summer Sevens Rugby season (look it up on with your favorite internet search engine). I’ll be spending tomorrow morning down on Coronado at our son’s first Sevens Rugby tournament, and then the Ohst family will be heading up to Santa Barbara for our daughter’s graduation from UC Santa Barbara on Sunday. Good times!
We had a great time celebrating our graduates last Sunday with our after church BBQ party. Thanks to all who helped with the food and set up and tear down, and congratulations to all our Grace Vineyard Graduates!
This coming week, some of our youth will be heading up to the Ignite 2023 Conference with other youth groups from Vineyard churches in Southern California. The conference is June 21-23, and I hope you’ll join me in praying this week for the entire conference. Their plan is to worship, engage in ministry, learn, play and together see the embers of faith swell into consuming flame. Let’s pray that this be a life changing week for our students!
Father’s Day with Grace
This coming Sunday is Father’s Day. I’m happy to tell you that our own Richard (Snake) Ertel will be bringing the message. He’ll be looking at one of Jesus’ most powerful and poignant parables – the story of the Prodigal son – with a message called “Finding Yourself in the Father’s Loving Arms”. If you’ve ever heard Snake before, you know this is going to be awesome, inspiring, encouraging, and will certainly grab our hearts. This will be a great Sunday to bring guests. We’ll have a special gift for every father in the house. (In fact, I think we’ll have a gift for every man in the house).
We typically post the previous Sunday’s sermon on Youtube every Friday afternoon, and I’ve been told that some of you watch them when you receive my weekly email, so here you go – here’s last Sunday’s message. It was the first in a new series called “Witness – Stories from the First Jesus Followers”. Enjoy!
Authentic Manhood Has Begun – last chance to join
Men – we began a new session of Authentic Manhood last Wednesday evening. If you missed the first week, we’ll let you catch up. This series defines authentic manhood by looking at the life of Jesus, and our current 6 week session is looking at “A Man and His Design”. This is an essential foundation for the rest of the Authentic Manhood series. The meetings are Wednesday evenings at 7pm. If you’re interested, please contact Richard “Snake” Ertel (760-622-4572), Michael Aplikowsky (760-
And that leads me to final thing I want to mention in this email, Golf For Hope.
Register for “Golf For Hope”
The “Golf For Hope” golf tournament fundraiser is coming up in July for Convicted for Christ. Richard “Snake” Ertel and Michael Aplikowsky lead a nonprofit organization in Oceanside called Convicted for Christ. You can check out https://www.convicted4christ.org to learn some more about their great work here in North County (or just ask Snake or Michael after church on Sunday, and I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you lots of great stories). They currently run one sober living home where men are working on recovery from addiction, and they are looking for their next home to purchase so they can minister to more men. They also do a ton of street ministry among the homeless in North County and are constantly seeing transformation in the lives of the people they are encountering. In fact, several people from our congregation regularly join the team from Convicted for Christ during the week, and I would encourage you to join them if at all possible. Please sign up for “Golf For Hope” by emailing Snake at richard@convicted4christ.org, or by going to the website https://www.convicted4christ.org. Note that if you don’t golf, you can come to the dinner portion of the event for only $25. Let’s support this great ministry birthed right out of our own Grace Vineyard Family!
And that’s it for this week’s update. Have a great rest of your weekend!
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.
P.S.
Don’t forget we’re needing to build up our building fund for some important improvements around our Grace Vineyard home. If you’d like to give a special offering, just make sure to mention “building fund” in the “what’s this donation for” section of the online giving system. Thanks!