Our Story
King’s Cross Church began as a prayer among the leadership of Crossroads Church and Archbold Evangelical Church to see the gospel of Jesus Christ further transform our region. In 2011 these two churches formed a partnership with the goal of establishing a new community of believers in Defiance. The founding churches called Sam Andres to be the lead pastor of King’s Cross Church. He trained a core team of people committed to seeing the gospel shine brighter in Defiance.
The Lord directed a few people from both of these churches to start meeting together in Defiance, again, to pray. As the Lord answered prayers, and as we loved our neighbors in simple ways, this tiny group slowly grew. We started in homes, and that’s where the life of our church will always stay. The center of our church life has been meeting in homes to share meals, pray, encourage and challenge one another through God’s Word. Check out Discipleship Groups and Gospel Life Groups.
A Church on the Move
We have wandered around a lot during our church’s first nine years.
1. We launched public worship gatherings in September 2013 at The Compass, aka The Skylark (2013-2014).
2. Less than a year later we moved to the Schomburg Auditorium on Defiance College campus (2014-2016) and enjoyed being on campus among students and professors.
3. We moved to the Stroede Center for the Arts and worshiped the Lord in that bright and beautiful space for four years, but had to leave because of of space limitations with the COVID pandemic (2016-2020).
4. For four months we worshiped outside in the splendor of creation at Independence Dam State Park (June-September 2020). This was a sweet memory in our church’s history.
5. We enjoyed meeting at the Defiance YMCA for plenty of space to grow and a nice warm pool for baptisms (2020-2022).
Joining Forces with Second Baptist Church
God led us to unite with Second Baptist Church in 2022 and start worshiping at 1945 E. Second St. in Defiance. Second Baptist Church was planted in the 1950’s, and has been pastored by Max Begley for nearly 30 years. The idea to merge congregations came out of a prayer meeting and friendship between Max and Sam. After a year-long process of prayerful discernment we decided that we are better together. Max is now a KCC staff pastor, and we look forward to caring for our flock and reaching our community with the love of Jesus together. We decided to stick with the name “King’s Cross Church,” but Second Baptist Church’s story is now our story.
We are grateful for what the Lord has done so far over the life of our church, and also think the best is yet to come. We are grateful to be a small part of God’s grand story that He is writing!