Pastor Arthur Defenderfer
Pastor Art was born in Bangor, Maine and spent his childhood on the East Coast. One Sunday while standing beside his mother at a service of the historical church of his childhood, he looked up to the pastor and said to himself, “I want to be a pastor.” It took awhile — but in Davis, Art answered the Lord’s calling.
Art’s family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960’s. In high school and at UCD, Art searched for fulfillment within the prevailing culture of that time.
As a UCD student in the early 1970’s, he felt desperately empty inside. No amount of academic success, war protests, mountain climbing or knowledge of Eastern religions filled the God shaped vacuum in his spirit.
In 1972, Art witnessed an amazing transformation in a girl he knew; this made him so curious that he visited a very lively church in Davis as part of an anthropology term paper on the “Jesus Movement”. The believers he met radiated Christ and told him to accept Jesus into his heart. After resisting for months, Art finally surrendered to Christ.
Art became very committed to Jesus and his wonderful new Christian friends at church. He joined them in sharing Christ on the UCD campus. When his desire to be a pastor was rekindled, he took classes at a local seminary and graduated from Christ For the Nations Bible school in 1978.
As he grew in Christ, Rev. Nolan Peschke the founding pastor of WLCC and GSIF, recognized the call of God on his life and became his mentor. Together they served in Davis and ministered in churches in the United States, Mexico, Poland, Siberia and conducted over fifty seminars for pastors in the Philippines GSIF.
Pastor Art became the Pastor of WLCC after Rev. Peschke went to heaven in 2007.
Pastor Art and his wife Nancy faithfully serve the people of Davis and WLCC.
Ken Bradford
Ken Bradford is the Worship Team leader at WLCC and an Ordained Minister in the Good Shepherd International Fellowship. Born in Canada, Ken moved to Davis as a young child when his father was hired as a professor at UCD.
After growing up in a historic reformed church, Ken became born again in his high school years. He became very zealous for the Lord and attended God’s Army Seminary of the Bible in Kerman, CA. He graduated from West Coast Bible College and Fresno Pacific College, then served as the youth pastor at Utkeagvik Presbyterian Church in Barrow, Alaska.
In 1989 Ken was part of a crusade evangelism team on the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines. After developing a relationship with a local pastor who worked with him in the crusades, Ken introduced them to Rev. Peschke, the Senior Pastor of WLCC. This began a fruitful ministry of WLCC and GSIF which continues to this day.
Ken is a Trustee of the WLCC. He and his wife live in Davis where he owns a local business.
Bill Wallace
Bill Wallace is a retired businessman, an Ordained minister in the Good Shepherd International Fellowship, and a tremendous servant leader at WLCC. He is in charge of the Church’s sound and audio visual equipment, helps with church administration and encourages the younger members of the church.
God has given Bill a very fruitful and multifaceted ministry to many Chinese scholars who stay up to a year studying and working in Davis. He shares one-on-one and conducts group studies for these scholars, students and family members who want to learn about God and the Bible in English. Bill and the WLCC provide English/Chinese parallel translations to his “students”. He leads many of his students to Christ.
When Bill’s students move to other places in the U.S. or back to China, he follows up with them and their friends via e-mail, Skype and/or QQ (the Chinese version of Facebook).
Bill has been a part of two mission teams that taught in high schools in rural China. In 2012, he took an eighty six day solo mission trip to China. He met with many of his new converts and led a number of their friends and family to Christ.
Mathew Jackson
Matthew Jackson is a worship leader at WLCC. He is a talented multi instrumentalist and singer and loves to worship God creatively through music and singing.
A U.C. Davis graduate, Mathew works with at risk youth in secondary public education and lives to see lives changed and transformed by the healing power of Christ.
In his spare time Matt enjoys sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom, praying, kickin’ it with family and friends and playing music.
