We would love for you to join us for our Cross City Church Plant Pledge Night at Northpoint Church (988 W. Ontario Ave. Corona, CA). This will be different than previous vision nights, so please come even if you have already attended a vision night. We will be talking more about the mission ahead and how you can pray for us in specific ways. At the end of the night, we will have an opportunity for anyone to pledge to become a financial partner with us. If y.ou have already partnered with us, please come anyway…we would love to see you and thank you face-to-face! If you are not interested in pledging financially, but would like to learn more or to pray with us, please come!

We will meet in Heritage Hall at Northpoint on Sunday, November 7th from 7-8:30pm.

Dessert and coffee will be served.

Childcare will be provided, so bring the whole family.

Hope to see you there. Please feel free to invite anyone who might want to hear more about this church plant!

Scott and Ken

Update and Prayer Meeting

We posted it on facebook, but forgot to post it on our website (yes, I do realize this is a bit backwards), but we will be holding a Update and prayer night at the Burns house Thursday, Sept 23. The house is located at 616 W Eleventh St in Corona. All are welcome to attend. Vision and Updates will be given at 8pm and prayer will start at 8:30pm.

Location, Location, Location!

We decided.  Its German Village.  That greater area is where we will live and plant the initial churches.

A Juicy Update Soon

It is overdue, we will give a far more detailed update in the days to come.  To get the live version, come to our prayer night on Thursday!  Please keep praying for us all!

In Christ, for Christ

Scott Burns

Church Name

Well, its official.  The first church is Cross City Church.  Thanks to those who wrote in with their thoughts.

Vision Night

Ken and I will be holding our first Vision, Update and Prayer time for our church plant on this coming Monday, August 30 @7-8pm.  Joe and Jen Brown have kindly agreed to host our time at their house located at

2356 Talbot Circle, Corona 92882.

We decided to put on these ongoing vision nights for a few reasons.  First, we wanted to be able to share our vision and give progressive updates in a personal fashion to our friends, family and partners.  Second, we wanted to pray together about the planting of Cross City Church.

Our intention is to have 4 of these times at various venues and with various focuses before December.

We look forward to the chance to share our vision and to ask God’s blessing on our efforts.  Though we would love to have you at each of our meetings, if you cant make it to this evening, we will have more in the future that you can attend.  We will be posting the dates of our future vision nights and fundraisers shortly.

Trip Results

As a result of our scouting trip last week, we were able to narrow-down our neighborhood selection to two top candidates.  The two targets that we are deciding between will be German Village and Grandview.  You can check out the areas on the map below.  The dark areas were potential neighborhoods that we eliminated.

View Potential areas in a larger map

On Wednesday to Friday of this week the Flowers and the Burns are driving around Columbus trying to determine which neighborhoods in which we will plant the first two churches.

The first day was productive as the team determined that the Old East area would not be one of those choices.  It was a great blessing to have Jim Culbertson (EFCA Allegheny Church Planting Director) and Jay O’Brian (Scarlet City Project) ride along with us throughout the day to help direct and give advice.

Please pray that the Lord will make it clear to all of us  regarding this enormous decision.

We have come to the point in our planning in which we need to file a bunch of legal paperwork. Part of that process is arriving at the name of the first church that I (Scott) will plant with Ken’s assistance. So, I wanted to drift it out there to see what people thought.

Here are some factors in a name:

• Nothing to do with geography since we have not yet decided upon our exact neighborhood
• Something that wasn’t too trendy (ie “Schnazzy Community”)
• Not a verb, adverb or an exclamation
• A name that does not pigeon-hole us
• ( Bonus) something that could express commitment to Christ and our community.

So here is the leader: “Cross City Church”

yes, it will be an Evangelical Free Church just like our home church is, even though it will not be reflected in the common name.

Throw us a comment on what you think. We will be deciding in the next few days

As of today, the conference has come to an end. It really was an amazing conference. I have never seen anything like it. I was truly impressed with the hard work, focus and excellence of the conference. Also, I can easily say that I have never been around that many people praying that much. Prayer truly is a great part of the EFCA Challenge Conferences!

I was able to develop friendships with several churches through this. Amazing and joy filled High Schoolers who invested substantial time in praying for our church plant.

The next two days are shaping up nicely. The Lord orchestrated several meetings throughout Saturday where I will be able to share the vision of what we are doing with some other EFCA churches. I will be preaching Sunday at Berean Baptist Church and having one last meeting before hoping on the plane and returning home.

All of your prayers for my meetings this weekend are truly appreciated. I will post my latest thoughts on location in the coming days.

One last thing. We have to pick the name for the first church for legal and logistical reasons. If you have any ideas for a name, respond in the comments.

Have I mentioned that my wife is a warrior, taking care of all four kids for these two trips? If not, I have now. I love you sweetheart.

It’s Thursday at the Challenge Conference. It has been crazy and amazing here. 5000 high schoolers, most of whom are pretty pumped about all they are learning and seeing the Lord do are keeping the Columbus Convention Center buzzing around the clock.

I have had the chance to walk around and pray for two of the neighborhoods here with groups of students. These have been great times to pray for every element of planting and for God to expose which neighborhood He desires for us to go to. They have also been tremendous times to talk through the gospel with these students and how to share it. We have seen a number of people profess Christ for the first times.
I think I underestimated the long-term affect this conference will have on church planting around the world, far beyond simply in Columbus. Many, many gifted and spirit filled youth have been filled with the idea and are thinking through their place in the advance of the Kingdom. A number of them have told me that they believe they are called to be a church planter in the future. Our hope in the Lumen ambition is to Glorify God through the living and speaking of the Gospel through many neighborhood churches in Ohio. Maybe we are seeing the Lord planting the seeds of scores of planters ready to harvest in 10 years! I really think that is what is happening.

On the planting front: Been getting some good coaching out here and have really benefitted from walking and driving around the city more. I think that the location issue is our biggest hurdle right now. We really need the Lord to lead us to the right area. Keep praying.

Also, please pray for my string of meetings with various churches and individuals. Pray that God will give us wisdom in pursuing and finding the people and financial partners He has in store for us.

Have I mentioned that 1400 of the students show up every night to pray? (sorry for the terrible pic)

Well, here we go again! As I write this entry, it is 12:15 am and I am flying somewhere over the edge of eastern Arizona on my way to Columbus. I will be a part of the Challenge 2010 conference. This is the EFCA’s national youth conference that has been held in Columbus, Oh in the attempt to help plant 2 EFCA churches.

Each afternoon I will be meeting up with students in potential planting sights to have them pray with me about the planting effort and walk around one of the neighborhoods with me. My hope is that the time spent will be helpful in gaining a greater idea of the planting location and that God might use the time to infect many of the students with the notion of investing their lives in the church, namely in church planting.

Finally, I will be attempting to connect with several churches in the greater Columbus area to seek out possible partnerships in the years to come.

Please pray for the trip and that God would show His leading and providing hand.