As the capital of Ohio, the largest city in Ohio, the third-largest metro area in Ohio, and a crossroads for knowledge, ideas, industry, and people of all cultures and backgrounds; Columbus is very strategically located within the Midwest.  Columbus is also home to The Ohio State University.  With a student population of over 60,000 and the second-largest campus in the nation, Ohio State welcomes and graduates thousands of students every year who will go and carry what they have learned all over the world.  Located within 550 miles of over half of the Unites States’ population, Columbus truly is a crossroads for the Midwest.  What happens in Columbus affects the rest of Ohio and and even the rest of the Midwest.

Although this is beginning to change, Columbus is also one of the most unreached cities in the Midwest.  According to census figures from 2000, of the approximately 1.5 million people in the metro area, 1 million claim no connection to any organized church or religion.  Of the approximately 500,000 who do report a connection, only about 130,000 claim to be evangelical Christians…only about 9 percent of the population.

In a city such as this, there is a great need for more Gospel-centered, mission-minded communities that will shine as lights of hope and life in a dark world.  One powerful spotlight may be strong enough to cover much of the city.  However, it’s reach would only cover the city from one angle at the surface level, missing much of the city.  Yet, many lights scattered throughout the city will be able to illumine the city in a way the spotlight could not.

The hope of the Lumen Foundation is to light up Columbus with the glorious Gospel in this way…not through one spotlight, but through adding more lights scattered throughout the city and beyond.  Thankfully, there are already many light shining brightly in Columbus.  The Lumen Foundation hopes to add to their number.  These lights are the communities and churches who embrace the call to let the Gospel transform their lives and their relationships in the midst of their communities.  As this happens, the Gospel will go out in a powerful way and lives will be transformed.

This goal does not stop at the Columbus city limits, but instead moves out along the highways to the many other strategic towns and cities scattered all over Ohio.  The desire of the Lumen Foundation is to spark and even help begin similar movements all over Ohio and beyond.  Being the capital city and centrally located makes Columbus a great place to start.  The hope, however, is that the transforming light of the Gospel, carried by churches that have been changed by it, will scatter and help illuminate the rest of Ohio.