Our Story

Second Presbyterian Church is a community guided by our mission of loving God, ourselves and others.

Established in 1865 as an anti-slavery church, Second has continually been blessed with bright, gifted, imperfect, industrious, big-hearted members who have sought to embody God’s love for our neighbors and world. Yet, if you plotted our narrative on a graph, you would not see a straight line of success after success. We have endured catastrophic loss and have perpetuated embarassing and hurtful wrongs.

Despite these setbacks and missteps, God’s faithfulness and Second’s grit have made us the longest continuously worshiping congregation in Kansas City. Over our history, we have embodied a frontier faith, planting numerous churches and living for purposes and needs beyond our own. From anti-slavery to women’s rights, staying put in the midst of white flight to climate change, HIV/AIDS to economic and ethnic injustice, the people of Second have remembered this: That the church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church.

And we’ve always remembered the church is about Jesus, God with us, the revolutionary rabbi from Nazareth who loves us and calls us to love one another and the world. Together we wrestle with what it means to follow and to be formed by, to love one another and grow more in love with Jesus Christ.