WEST LIBERTY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.” Philippians 3:10
May 11, 2025
THE GOD WE WORSHIP
Ephesians
Message and Scriptures
Birth of Church in Ephesus
Acts 19:1-22
WLCF VISION STATEMENT – To be a God centered, God loving, Holy Spirit filled, led and empowered Church, having Christ as the Head and we, as His Body, being used to make disciples of Jesus to build His Kingdom.
CHURCH COVENANT:
We covenant together with God and with one another in an ever-increasing relationship with God as follows: Lord God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we covenant with you and with each other… that we will seek to be a God-centered Body of Believers always seeking and loving You first. Always being used by You to reach out to others in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ our Lord. Always striving together to be doers of Your Word.
BARUCH ATA YHWH SEBAOTH – Bless You. Praise You. Thank You Beloved LORD GOD. We are thankful for the individual ministries you place on each of our hearts, that we can all participate in building Your Kingdom.
Weekly Dawn Prayer – Wednesday mornings at 7:00am both in person and via Zoom
Daily Time Alone with God – for a daily devotion please follow “Time Alone With God”, found on the website. Please pray TAG every day.
Prayer Chain – Call or email Lynne Zeman 319-627-4858 or westlibertychristianfellowship@gmail.com
TODAY AT WLCF (On Site and Zoom)
Communion Worship Service
9:00 a.m. Adult Sunday school 10:00 a.m. Prayer 10:30 a.m. Worship Service
THIS WEEK AT WLCF
Bible Studies/Sunday School/Worship
Tuesday 7:00 p.m. Spanish Bible Study – Practica El Camino
Wednesday 7:00 a.m. Dawn Prayer – Prayer for the World/Nation/Community/WLCF
6:00 p.m. Youth Bible Study – Luke / Psalms
6:30 p.m. Adult Bible Study – Celebration of Discipline
Saturday 7:30 a.m. Men’s Bible Study - Revelation
Sunday 9:00 a.m Adult Sunday School, Women’s Sunday School
10:00 a.m. Prayer (Sanctuary) Social (Foyer)
10:30 a.m. Worship Service
Birthday(s)
Sunday May 11 – Dany Brooks and Kaelynn Feldman
Monday May 12 – Becki Elsberry
Wednesday May 14 – Cindy Padilla and Will Daufeldt
Anniversary(ies)
MASKS: Everyone is now welcome to make their own decision regarding wearing masks. There will still be a supply by the entry door, but it is your choice whether you wear a mask.
Zoom –You will need to download the app on your phone or computer. The code for ALL videos is 228 893 6865. The password is 416991. Join us!
UPCOMING EVENTS, SERVICES, AND ACTIVITIES
Spring Tea - The Ladies of Nichols Christian Church would like to invite the Ladies of all your churches to a Spring Tea for an afternoon of fun, fellowship, learning, and food. The Tea will take place on Friday, May 16 at Nichols Christian Church at 607 Grant Avenue in Nichols. It will take place from 1:30 until 3 PM. Our speakers will be Lynn Pruitt (floral landscaping) and Joan Morgan (vintage underwear). The wearing of a spring hat is welcome, but optional. Please RSVP by May 9 to Kay Cline (319) 631-3543 or Linda Barton (319) 331-3999 or Pastor Marcy at revmarcy@gmail.com.
Food Pantry – The Ministerial Association has extended the challenge and we are again focusing on collecting donations of pancake mix and syrup. Let’s stock their shelves! Donations can be left at WLCF and we will get them to the food pantry.
Graduate Recognition – We will be recognizing our two high school graduates, Grace Ortiz and Jacob Zeman, on Sunday May 25.
Baccalaureate Service – The West Liberty High School Baccalaureate service will be help at WLCF at 7pm on Sunday, May 25.
Vacation Bible School for summer 2025 will be June 23 – 27. Our theme is True North: Trusting Jesus in a Wild World. Becky Feldman is coordinating and we have volunteer signups on the back table. We will have a VBS meeting after the service on Sunday, May 25.
ONGOING EVENTS, SERVICES, AND ACTIVITIES
Baptism – If you are interested in following Jesus in the Waters of Believer’s Baptism please see Pastor Mario.
West Liberty Food Pantry – Is open at FCU Saturdays 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. and Thursdays 3:00 – 4:00 pm and 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. Thanks to the men who deliver these items to FCU. Julie McKillip is our coordinator.
Church library – You are invited to check out the books from the library downstairs.
Copy of the Message or Bulletin – Visit our website: www.wlcf.org (an audio version is included) or contact Brad Jenkins.
Stephen’s Ministry – is available for anyone needing someone to walk beside them or pray with them. Please contact Kelsey Jenkins 319-936-4891 or Cindy Mays 319-330-4620 for more information.
Child Care: Child care is available in the Nursery during worship service.
Children’s Sunday school – during the sermon at the 10:30 a.m. worship service.
OUR GIVING TO THE LORD’S WORK: Offering Box – back table
Giving in May: $1930. We are behind budget $9307.87. We need a monthly offering of $9150.52 and a weekly offering of $2111.66 to match our budget. BARUCH ATA YHWH SEBAOTH for the giving of YOUR people through the years. God loves a cheerful giver. Checks can be mailed to the church or dropped off at the church, in the mailbox at the end of the lane. You are also invited to sign up for Electronic Funds Transfer (ETF). Please see Lynne for details.
WLCF YOUTH MINISTRY
WLCF Youth Group for young people in 6th – 12th grades
Ministries
Worship Service: Sundays at 10:30 a.m.
Youth Night: Wednesday 6 – 6:30 pm – Luke (Please bring your Bibles).
Activities and Events
COMMUNITY YOUTH GROUP (CYG)
If you are interested in serving this ministry in any way, let Pastor Mario know. The group meets at First Church United (FCU) on Sunday evenings September during the school year. We will be needing a new representative from our church to serve on the Board.
TIME ALONE WITH GOD (TAG)
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Ephesus was The Vanity Fair of the ancient world. Ephesus was a city which had many a claim to greatness and to fame.
Commercial Importance -a seaport at the mouth of a river-so it commanded the trade of the Cayster River Valley. Three great roads converged on Ephesus: 1) great trade route from the Euphrates by way of Colossae and Laodicea, trade from the East. 2) the road from Galatia by way of Sardis; trade from Asia Minor. 3) road from the south and the trade of the Maeander Valley.
Political Importance-she was called, "Supreme Metropolis of Asia." 1) Ephesus was a 'free city' - Romans granted it the right of self-government and never had Roman troops quartered in it; had a democratically elected governing body. ‘the boule’ and ‘town state.’ 2) An ‘Assize town’, a location where the governor would go to try(trial) the most important cases, with great pomp and pageantry. 3) the center of the Pan-Ionian games the ‘asiarchs’ were the men in charge of arranging these games
Religious Importance 1) Its greatest glory was the Temple of Diana (Artemis) considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. In the temple was housed the image of Diana, which legend said fell from heaven. People by the millions came to the Temple to worship this statue. 2) Behind the image, in the Temple, was an inner shrine. There people brought valuables for safe-keeping, so the Bank of ancient world. 3) The worship at the shrine involved frenzy, ecstasy, vile immorality. Priests were eunuchs and 1,000 female priestesses. The worship involved orgies in honor of the goddess of the hunt, of propagation and fertility. 4) The temple was also the center where "Ephesian Letters" were bought. These letters were charms and were used for anything. 5) The area around the Temple was also an asylum where fugitives, criminals, and anyone could flee to.
Cultural Importance: 1) Ephesus had a large open-air theatre; it could hold up to 50,000 spectators. 2) Its people a mixed bag, a melting pot as any major metropolis would be. They were fickle, pleasure-seeking, superstitious and immoral.
So into Ephesus poured a stream of criminals of every kind, fugitives from the law, escapers and avoiders of justice, and into Ephesus there flowed a torrent of credulous, superstitious people, for in a superstitious world Ephesus was well-nigh the most superstitious city in the world.
The character of the people of Ephesus was notoriously bad. The people had the reputation all over Asia of being fickle, superstitious and immoral.
William Barclay. Letters to The Seven Churches pp. 11-19 (1957).
You have to surrender your will to God. Turn everything over to God's care. That is...... the answer to the problem of evil! Surrender to the will of God in the hope of His care and direction over the universe. In this world the problem of desire runs wild... In heaven we will be quite content to not get what we want. For those who look to God and call upon Him and trust in Him, they can be sure that good will triumph in their lives. Where is our responsibility to work with God against evil? The main thing we have to do is follow Christ and invite others to follow Him. Practice now living in the Kingdom of God as a disciple of Jesus and using your life, your sphere of influence in every way you can to advance what is good and loving and healthy. Just do the things that are good in life and trust God.
Dallas Willard (Interview "Where was God on the morning of 9/11?") You Tube.
Paul then enquired about their baptism, and learned that it was the pre-Pentecostal baptism as proclaimed and administered by John the Baptist-a baptism of expectation rather than one of fulfilment, as Christian baptism now was. Accordingly, he explained to them the anticipatory character of the Johannite rite; it was closely bound up with John's proclamation of Jesus as the Coming One. But now that Jesus had come and accomplished His mission on earth, now that He was raised from the dead and exalted at God's right hand, whence He had sent the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, an anticipatory baptism was inappropriate and inadequate.
The twelve men then received baptism "into the name of the Lord Jesus'
Ephesus was to be a new centre of the Gentile mission-the next in importance after Syrian Antioch-and these twelve disciple were to be the nucleus of the Ephesian church. By this exceptional procedure, then, they were associated in the apostolic and missionary task of the Christian Church.
For two full years this work went on. Paul stayed in Ephesus, but a number of his colleagues carried on missionary activity in the neighboring cities as well. It was during these years that the churches in the Lycus valley-those at Colossae, Hierapolis and Laodicea-were founded, although Paul does not appear to have visited these cities in person (cf. Col. 2:1; 4:13); perhaps all seven of the churches of Asia addressed in the Revelation of John were founded about this time. The province was intensively evangelized, and became one of the leading centres of Christianity for centuries afterwards.
F.F. Bruce, Commentary on The Book of Acts pp. 386f,389 (1977).
Jesus, in his human body, is now equally at home on earth and in heaven, so that in him the project of creation itself is fulfilled. So if, in the first chapter of Acts, we see a small part of 'earth' - namely the human body of Jesus - fully at home in heaven, joining the two in himself, then in the second chapter we shall see the breath of heaven rushing down to fill the disciples. That is again Temple-language. Acts 1 and 2 constitute Jesus and his people as the true Temple, the place where now, already, God and humans, heaven and earth, come together. We will pursue this in the next chapter, when we're looking at Pentecost itself.
That is why, as we shall see, most of the pressure points and controversies in Acts are precisely about temples - whether in Jerusalem, or Athens, or Ephesus, or back again in Jerusalem. That is exactly what we should expect, and it shapes much of Luke's story. And temples are places of power and danger. If Acts is about the new Temple clashing with the old ones, this means a challenge of power. Who is really in charge, and how must Jesus' followers navigate this strange new world of competing power-claims? Acts calls us to discern, for our own time and place, what it means to live as the new Temple, confronting the idolatrous temples of our own day; and also what it means to say that we must obey God rather than human authorities. These all go closely together..
N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Acts pp.166 (2024).
What I learned today:
VOLUNTEER ASIGNMENTS
Church Cleaning Schedule
May 18 & 25 Brad & Kelsey Jenkins
June 1 & 8 Mireya Franco, Teresa Ortiz, Mayra Esquivel
June 15 & 22 Mary Maxson