JANUARY 12 - JANUARY 18

Every Tuesday we publish a blog post to lay out in one place what’s going in the life of the church for the upcoming week. Below we’ve got a snapshot of what’s on the calendar this week:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 13

• Basketball in the Park

  • 6:30pm - El Camino Real Park

    • Reach out to Manny for more info

THURSDAY, JANUARY 15

• French Park Run Club

  • 6:30am - French Park Grass Area

• Small Groups

  • 6:30pm - Lee Home

  • 7:00pm - Roenicke Home

    • Find out more about Small Groups here

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16

• Small Groups

  • 7:00pm - Erkelens & Davis homes

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17

• Neighborhood Outreach

  • 9:45am - Hidden House Parking Lot

    • Reach out to Robert for more info and to RSVP

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18

• Sunday Gathering at the Ebell Club

  • 10:00am - Meeting Room: Ballroom

• Youth Ministry

  • 6:30pm - Hopper & Burr in DTSA

    • Learn more about Youth Ministry here

EVERY TUESDAY @ 6:30PM

We’re continuing to join forces with our sister church, Sovereign Grace Church of Orange, and play basketball as a means of fellowship and outreach. Join in every Tuesday.

• Meet at El Camino Real Park (400 N Main St, 92868).

• 6:30pm - 8:30pm.

• Open invite. This is a great place to bring your friends, co-workers, and neighbors - no matter where they’re at with church or what they believe.

Come and go as you please. Bring whatever you need for the night. We hope to see you there.

COLOSSIANS 3:1-4

This Sunday, we were joined by our dear friend, Kyle Houlton from Sovereign Grace Church of Orange. He pointed out that while we’re all living, everyone wants to be even more alive. We all want an ideal life. So where do we get it? What does it look like? What shape does it take on when it’s lived out? The answer is Jesus Christ. The One who is not just some kind of life dispenser, but who is himself our life. If we’ve died to sin and been raised with Christ, the only life we have now is the life of Christ in us. Which means that the way to be most alive is get more and more of Christ. Striving to make all that is precious to him precious to us. Increasingly taking on his shape so that all that displeases him affects us in the same way. Eagerly waiting for that day when the One seated at the right hand of God in heaven returns to this earth and our ideal lives are fully realized.

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

EVERY 2ND THURSDAY OF THE MONTH

After the December fallow month, the men of Cross of Grace will gather together to sit under the word, bear their brother’s burdens, and call out to the Lord in prayer. All guys 15 years and older are welcome to join in at the Robles’ home tonight at 7pm. They’ll be discussing the plagues upon Egypt and what God wants to teach us through them. Come ready to be challenged, encouraged, and built up as men in Christ!

REACH OUT HERE FOR THE ADDRESS

THANKING GOD FOR 2025

From Mark Prater, Executive Director of Sovereign Grace Churches:

In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch after their first missionary journey, and verse 27 tells us, “And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done.”

This end of year video is doing just that–looking back at 2025 to declare all that God has done. Sovereign Grace experienced a year full of God’s grace, undeserved mercy, and so much more than could fit in this short video. However, it is good for us to consider all He has done, giving Him thanks, and looking with hope to the future.

I hope this video encourages you. He has used the members, leaders, and pastors of our local churches to reach the lost, disciple, reach the next generation, build strong local churches, and so much more. Hasn’t He been good?

May we never tire of declaring all God has done, for his glory alone. As we go forward in mission together in 2026, let’s be actively aware of God’s activity in us, through us, and around us. He has done great things!

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

LET’S CONTINUE TO TAKE CARE OF OUR SUNDAY MEETING SPACE

We love the Ebell Club and are so grateful to gather in the heart of DTSA. As an expression of that gratitude, let’s continue being the best tenants we can. In addition to our regular Sunday morning “house rules” (supervising kids at all times & staying out of the planters), we’ve got one new one for you:

• Please keep the employee entrance off Mortimer St clear. Let’s keep our kids off the porch railing outside the employee entrance door for their safety as well as the good of the nearby planters. Parents, please help by keeping an eye on your kids after service and encouraging them to play along the sidewalk.

Thanks for doing your part to love our meeting space!

JANUARY 5 - JANUARY 11

Every Tuesday we publish a blog post to lay out in one place what’s going in the life of the church for the upcoming week. Below we’ve got a snapshot of what’s on the calendar this week:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 6

• Basketball in the Park

  • 6:00pm - El Camino Park

    • Reach out to Manny for more info

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8

• French Park Run Club

  • 6:30am - French Park Grass Area

• Men’s Meeting

  • 7:00pm - Robles home

SUNDAY, JANUARY 11

• Sunday Gathering at the Ebell Club

  • 10:00am - Meeting Room: Ballroom

JOIN US FOR RUN CLUB - EVERY THURSDAY AT 6:30AM

It’s a new year, and you likely have new goals you want to pursue and fresh patterns you want to create. We encourage you to add Run Club to the list. Each Thursday morning at 6:30am, you can start your day with Christian fellowship, build relationships with French Park neighbors, and do your body some good in the process. Consider joining us in the center of French Park for a casual run in our community. Share this digital flyer to spread the word. RSVP with Pastor Jeff.

THE COSMIC CONFLICT OF THE PLAGUES

On Sunday, we journeyed through Exodus 7:14-10:29 - the first 9 of 10 plagues upon Egypt. This is the great action sequence of Exodus. And, unlike so many stories and movies today, this action actually means something. No explosions just because. No fights that are just meant to entertain. No action just for action’s sake. But all of it designed to teach us more about who we are, the world we live in, and the whole purpose of it all. God decided to tell the story this way to not only captivate us with this run of compelling scenes, but to show us something we really need to see.

Zooming in on one of these 3 sights, we focused on the world we live in. Exodus teaches us that it’s an embattled world. And one of the purposes of the plagues is to: Demonstrate the real power of darkness & God’s real triumph over darkness. This stands at the heart of what the central conflict in the story is all about. As scholar, Philip Ryken puts it:

“The great confrontation in Exodus was not simply a dispute between Moses and Pharaoh, or a conflict between Israel and Egypt, but a battle between God and Satan. A battle which pitted YHWH, the true God, who moved Moses and Israel, against all the false gods of the Egyptian pantheon, backed by a host of fallen angels who had turned from God as part of Satan’s original rebellion. Thus, the exodus was another engagement in the invisible war that continually rages between Heaven and Hell.”

The “great confrontation” in Exodus is not just Moses against Pharaoh and his magicians, but YHWH, the God of Israel, vs. the real dark powers that stood behind these sorcerers. In no uncertain terms, it is a battle of YHWH vs. the gods of Egypt, and this conflict comes to a head in the plagues upon the land. Because in the plagues, YHWH is defeating the gods of Egypt. He’s dethroning the powers they trusted in one by one. He’s demonstrating to them that they need a better God. He’s proving to the Egyptians back then and to everybody, everywhere, ever since that he alone is worthy of our worship.

Learn more about the cosmic conflict and find a full hit list of dethroned gods here.

ACTION THAT SEIZES OUR ATTENTION & SHAPES OUR HEARTS

We come to the most familiar part of the Exodus story: the plagues upon Egypt. It’s the great action sequence of the story. Images of blood, destruction, and power from on high in our minds. Undrinkable waters, devastated farm lands, the death of livestock, and darkness reigning over Egypt. All this is true. All this is real. All this is what God did back then. But why did he do it? Why 10 plagues and all that came with them on the way to breaking his people out of slavery? Unlike so many stories today, does all this “action” mean anything? God could have said the word and shattered the chains that bound them. He could have done things any other way - he is the potter and the whole world is his clay! Yet, he chose to write the story like this to teach us something significant about who we are, the universe we live in, and the whole purpose of it all. He wants us to see the dead-end road of any man who resists his Maker. How much better a Savior he is than anything else we could trust in. The worship that we - and everyone and everything else - was made for. This is the purpose of the plagues. 

LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE