Why are there churches in our Kansas towns?

Everything is here for a reason.

We have stores in our towns because entrepreneurs saw a business opportunity and they acted to meet demand; to fill and economic niche. But why are the churches here? Is it just because that is our history – that people moved west and brought their religion with them? Is the cause of the churches’ existence to be attributed to human factors only, or is there another reason they are here? Long ago, a church planter we know as the Apostle Paul wrote that the ultimate reason for the existence of Christ’s church was that God had given the apostles the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18).

What is a reconciliation? It is a restoration of a friendship when friends have previously quarreled. The quarrel in question is that from God and directed against all people, and the cause of the quarrel was sin, our trespasses against God. The way the quarrel ended was that in Christ Jesus, God was reconciling the world to himself in a very specific way, which was that he was not counting trespasses against those who trusted Christ Jesus. In Paul’s day, as in ours, many people did not know nor trust Christ, and against them God still holds a quarrel. That is why Paul says he is an ambassador for Christ: God was making his appeal through men like Paul, and the appeal is “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!” The apostles passed down their ambassadorship to others, committing it to faithful men to teach to others also (2 Tim 1:2).

So why are there churches in our Kansas towns? All questions of history aside, it is ultimately because God has not stopped making his appeal. Through the church God intends to say to every single person “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!” This is a message for every person, because every person has trespassed against God. In other words, the church is God’s gift to our Kansas towns. In the church, God keeps making his appeal through his ambassadors, giving both the encouragement that friendship may be restored to them in Christ Jesus, and giving the warning that if friendship is not restored, they will die in their sins and reap eternal consequences. It is good to be given Christ’s church in our towns, because in them a good and gracious God is interacting with sinners like us. Are you listening to Christ’s ambassadors make his appeal? In view of how good a gift the church is, listening is everyone’s responsibility.