June 23, 2023
Hello Grace Vineyard and friends of Grace Vineyard,
Happy Summer! We turned past another season this week; Spring is officially in our rear view mirror, and the beautiful Oceanside summer is in full swing. This will be my 41st summer here, and I gotta say, I’m still amazed at this weather! I think we probably live in the nicest climate on the planet….Thank You, Lord!!
As I told you in last week’s email, Kim, Bryce, and I drove up to Santa Barbara on Sunday to help Charissa move out of her apartment and to attend her UCSB graduation. We had a very successful trip, and were able to accomplish it all in one day (one long day, for sure, but I didn’t have to spend the night there as we had originally thought). Charissa will be home for the summer, commuting to APU in East Los Angeles once a week for her graduate program, and then she’ll plan on moving to graduate housing in the Fall. It’s nice to have our entire family under one roof again! While I was gone on Sunday, Snake (Richard) Ertel brought a Father’s Day message. We put the sermon part of the service up on our Youtube channel, and I’ll drop that video in right here in case you want to see it again:
I’m pretty sure Snake had even more inspiring and wise things that he shared earlier in the service when Father’s day gifts were given to the men in the room, but to see the whole service you’ll need to go to our Facebook channel, facebook.com/gracevcf, where you’ll find the recording of the live stream in the timeline.
Another great thing that is going on this week is that we have a bunch of students from our youth group at the Ignite conference in Tehachapi with students from Vineyard youth groups from all over Southern California. They’ll be driving home tomorrow (Saturday) and hopefully be with us Sunday morning. I’m hoping some of them will have stories to share about their experiences with the Lord this week. Thanks again to those of you who helped raise money to get them there!
Witness-stories from the 1st Jesus Followers
When I was with you 2 weeks ago on June 11, I began a new series called “Witness – stories from the 1st Jesus Followers”. After Jesus’ resurrection He told His followers that they would be His witnesses throughout the world, and they’d have special empowering to to be His witnesses when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. That happened on the Day of Pentecost (the story is told in Acts 2), and we’re reading stories in the book of Acts about what happened after Pentecost to see what we can learn for our lives as witnesses of Jesus. This coming Sunday we’ll read the story in Acts chapters 3 and 4 about a 40 year old guy who has been lame from birth but gets healed, and the resulting witness draws another 2,000 people to become followers of Jesus! But as Jesus also predicted, persecution starts to take place with the religious leaders giving them lots of pressure to stop telling people about Jesus. It’s an amazing story, and I think we’ll all be inspired.
New Women’s “The Chosen” study begins on July 3
Monday nights beginning July 3rd, the Women of Grace will be watching Season 3 of The Chosen at my house (4965 Calle Sobrado, Oceanside) from 6:30-8:30pm. They watch an episode together, read through the scriptures it is based on, discuss what they’ve seen and pray for each other. It’s a pretty cool way to connect around the stories of the Gospels. For more information, please call or text Kim Ohst 760.519.4558.
Start Saving for the Women’s Fall Retreat
The women will be doing our Women’s Retreat this coming Fall at Pine Valley October 20-22. The cost will be $230 for private bath lodge rooms, $210 for shared bath lodge rooms and $180 for dorm rooms. You can begin to pay for this retreat and we’ll keep track of it for you. If you pay online at www.gracevcf.org or in person, please note that it’s for the women’s retreat. If you end up not attending, we will refund your money. Please email kimohst@gmail.com or text Kim Ohst at 760.519.4558 to let her know what type of room you are reserving. We have limited availability.
Don’t Forget Your Invitation Cards
In case you’ve never noticed, we have a basket full of Invitation cards at the coffee counter in the lobby. They come in packets of 5, and they’re a handy tool to have in your pocket or purse throughout the week when you find yourself in God-conversations and you’d like to give the person in front of you an invitation to our Sunday services. On the front it says “Join us this Sunday – we’d love to get to know you…see you at 9:30”. On the back there’s a little map. Pick up your invitation pack this Sunday morning.
Gulf For Hope is July 22
Last week you heard Snake (Richard) Ertel preach, so if you hadn’t met him yet, now you know who I’m talking about when I mention this guy in our church named “Snake”! He is an amazing brother and we are so blessed to have him and Michelle in our family. He and Michael Aplikowsky lead a nonprofit organization called Convicted for Christ that is doing great work in Oceanside and we have an opportunity to support them by participating in their Gulf For Hope fundraiser. They’ve managed to get thousands of dollars worth of prizes, so you might end up getting more than you give when you register! And if you don’t gulf, you can skip the gulf-tournament part and just attend the banquet dinner. Here’s the details:
In addition to doing a ton of street ministry among the homeless in North County, Convicted for Christ also currently runs 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. Please sign up for “Golf For Hope” by emailing Snake at richard@convicted4christ.org, or by going to the website https://www.convicted4christ.org. If you choose to only come to the dinner portion of the event, the fee is 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 email. Enjoy your Saturday and I’ll see you on Sunday morning!
with love and blessings to each of you,
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!