Test Questions on Chapter VI1.—Why do many rural communities take so little interest in their schools?2.—Show how most rural schools train country children away from the farms to the city instead of fitting them for country life.3.—How does the expense of American rural schools compare, per capita, with the expense of the city schools?4.—How can the country boys and girls be given a fair chance in our public school system?5.—In what ways does the district school plan work badly as a unit of management and of taxation?6.—What is wrong with the construction of most country school buildings?7.—Why is the consolidated school in the town or village a bad thing for children from the farms?8.—State the efficiency argument for consolidation of rural schools.9.—Describe the Indiana law on this subject and give your opinions about it.10.—Show the superior advantages of the purely rural type of centralized school.11.—Describe the consolidated rural school in Illinois, known as the “John Swaney School,” and tell what you like about it.12.—How do you think a high school course of study in the country ought to differ from that in the city?13.—Why should agriculture, domestic science, animal husbandry, et cetera, be taught in rural schools? How early would you begin?14.—Compare the history of specific education for rural life in Europe and in America.15.—What can you say about school gardens as a feature in rural education?16.—How can “School Improvement Leagues” become powerful allies of the country school forces?17.—What are some of the educational possibilities of rural libraries?18.—In your experience what educational service can Farmers’ Institutes render the farming community?19.—Show something of the broad field of the agricultural colleges and their extension work, and the part they take in rural education.20.—Write out concisely the best statement you can make of the immediate needs in rural education and the constructive policy you would propose to meet these needs.
Test Questions on Chapter VI
1.—Why do many rural communities take so little interest in their schools?
2.—Show how most rural schools train country children away from the farms to the city instead of fitting them for country life.
3.—How does the expense of American rural schools compare, per capita, with the expense of the city schools?
4.—How can the country boys and girls be given a fair chance in our public school system?
5.—In what ways does the district school plan work badly as a unit of management and of taxation?
6.—What is wrong with the construction of most country school buildings?
7.—Why is the consolidated school in the town or village a bad thing for children from the farms?
8.—State the efficiency argument for consolidation of rural schools.
9.—Describe the Indiana law on this subject and give your opinions about it.
10.—Show the superior advantages of the purely rural type of centralized school.
11.—Describe the consolidated rural school in Illinois, known as the “John Swaney School,” and tell what you like about it.
12.—How do you think a high school course of study in the country ought to differ from that in the city?
13.—Why should agriculture, domestic science, animal husbandry, et cetera, be taught in rural schools? How early would you begin?
14.—Compare the history of specific education for rural life in Europe and in America.
15.—What can you say about school gardens as a feature in rural education?
16.—How can “School Improvement Leagues” become powerful allies of the country school forces?
17.—What are some of the educational possibilities of rural libraries?
18.—In your experience what educational service can Farmers’ Institutes render the farming community?
19.—Show something of the broad field of the agricultural colleges and their extension work, and the part they take in rural education.
20.—Write out concisely the best statement you can make of the immediate needs in rural education and the constructive policy you would propose to meet these needs.
THE COMMUNITY-SERVING CHURCH AND ITS ALLIES
I. The Opportunity and Function of the Country Church.
Its Necessity to Rural Progress
The city man’s judgment of many things rural is apt to be warped. The country is a better place than he thinks it is. Country institutions are doing better than he thinks they are; and the country church is by no means as dead and useless as he is apt to imagine. Ridiculing the plan to federate three village churches, a typical city man remarked, “What is the use? Three ciphers are just as useless together as alone!” Such a superficial verdict must not be accepted. The church in the country is certainly involved in a serious and complex problem. In many places it is decadent. In most places it is easily criticised for its meager successes in this age of progress; but it is still essential in spite of its defects.
No amount of unfavorable criticism can refute the fact that a community-serving church is the most essential institution in country life. Criticise it as we may for its inefficiency, it is to the country church that we must look to save the country. Even though it may be usually a struggling institution, inadequatelyequipped, poorly financed, narrow in its conception of its mission, slow in responding to the progressive spirit of the age, wasting its resources in fruitless competitions, and often crude in its theology and ineffective in its leadership,—nevertheless it is blessing millions of our people, and remains still the one supreme institution for social and religious betterment. It may be criticised, pitied, ridiculed. It has not yet been displaced.
Because the rural church is absolutely essential to the rural community, it must be maintained, whatever be the cost. Letsurpluslocal churches die, as they ultimately will, by the law of the survival of the fittest. The community-serving church must live. The man who refuses to sustain it is a bad citizen. Dr. Anderson rightly claims “The community needs nothing so much as a church, to interpret life; to diffuse a common standard of morals; to plead for the common interest; to inculcate unselfishness, neighborliness, cooperation; to uphold ideals and to stand for the supremacy of the spirit. In the depleted town with shattered institutions and broken hopes, in the perplexity of changing times, in the perils of degeneracy, the church is the vital center which is to be saved at any cost. In the readjustments of the times, the country church has suffered; but if in its sacrifices it has learned to serve the community, it lives and will live.”[33]
To condense diagnosis and prescription into a single sentence:The country church has become decadent where it has ceased to serve its community.It may find its largest life again in the broadest kind of sacrificial service.
Stages of Country Church Evolution
In this rapidly growing country, particularly in the past century of empire-building in the great West, four rather distinct stages of development may be traced in the history of the country church. As the railroads have pushed out into all sections for the development of our natural resources, the apostles of the Christian faith have usually been in the van of the new civilization. Too often they have been apostles of diverse sects, pious promoters coveting for the church of their zeal strategic locations and a favorable advantage in the conquest of the country for The King. But in general, the story of beginnings in the planting of our American churches has been a tale of real heroism, of devotion to the highest welfare of humanity and the glory of God, and of untold sacrifice. In brief these stages of church evolution are as follows:
1. The period of pioneer struggle and weakness, through which practically all churches have had to pass.
2. Usually a period of growth and prosperity, sharing the growth of the community; or, if the new town failed to justify its hopes, a period of marking time, under the burden of a building debt.
3. The period of struggle against rural depletion, the rural church meanwhile losing many members to the cities. Apparently a majority of country churches are now in this stage and for many of them it is anoble struggle for efficient survival. Thousands of churches however have succumbed, 1,700 in the single state of Illinois.
4. The ultimate stage of this evolution is the survival of the fittest, the inevitable result of the struggle. Most churches have not yet worked this through, but when they do, it is byreadjustment to a redirected rural life. It costs much sacrifice in time and money. It requires the church to study frankly its situation and to surrender cheerfully old notions of success and to broaden its ideals of service.
Old and New Church Ideals
The pioneer type of the circuit-rider church may still be found among the mountains and other neglected or scattered sections of the country. Its ideal of success is very simple: a monthly preaching service when the “elder” makes his rounds; and an annual “protracted meeting” in which the leader “prays the power down” and all hands “get religion,” presumably enough to last them through the year. For this kind of success only three factors seem to be essential: a leader with marked hypnotic power, an expectant crowd ready to respond to his suggestion, and a place to meet. The place may be simply a roof over a pulpit. Results are meager and the same souls, may be, have to be saved next year.
We would not deny the itinerant heroes of pioneer days the credit they deserve for their self-sacrificing labors. Unquestionably they served their generation well, as well as conditions allowed. But mostchurches have outgrown this low ideal of success. They plan a more continuous work. They desire more than merely emotional results. They appeal to intelligence and to the will and make the culture of Christian character the great objective. Such work is vastly important; but a still higher and broader standard must be raised to-day for country church success.
A few weeks ago there came from an ambitious and active country minister (who evidently wanted a city church) a tabulated, type-written statement of his work for the year. According to widely accepted standards it was evidence of his efficiency and the success of his church. It gave the number of sermons he had preached, the calls he had made, the prayer meetings he had led, the Sunday school sessions attended, the number of conversions and additions to his church membership, the number of families added to his parish roll, the number of people he had baptized, married and buried; the average attendance at all services, the size of his Sunday school, the amount of money raised for church expenses and for benevolences, the sums expended for repairing the property,—for all of which we were asked to praise the Lord. To be sure, it was a rather praiseworthy record, and, on the strength of it, this particular country minister was called to a city church! He will not be any happier there, his salary will not go any farther there, and he will probably have less influence; but he has attained the dignity of acityminister, the goal of many a man’s ambition. Alas that so many of us seem to forget that the Gardenof Eden was strictly rural; and that it was only when mankind was driven out of it that they went off and founded cities!
This case is a typical one. We are still too apt to reckon the success of a church in statistics reported in the denominational Yearbook. The book of Numbers is a poor Gospel. Let us not disparage the importance of adding forty people to the church membership, or doubling the size of the Sunday school, or tripling the benevolences, or increasing the congregations. These things are all splendid, every one of them, and indicate a live church and an active, consecrated minister; but they are not ultimate tests of a church’s efficiency.
The Test of Its Efficiency
We must admit that the real business of a Christian Church is not to swell its membership roll or to add to the glory of its particular sect or to raise enough money for its own support and keep its property painted, nor even to get the community into the church.The business of the church is to get the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ into the community and thence into all the world.If it is not doing that it is not succeeding. It is succeeding only in proportion as it is accomplishing that; for its business is to Christianize that community.
Dr. Gladden is right when he says that the test of the efficiency of the church must be found in the social conditions of the community to which it ministers. To be sure the church should emphasizeevangelism and the need of church membership. Let it add to its strength, in order to become a strong, effective organization. But let it remember that this is but a means to an end. Let it keep in mind the immediate object of its work, toChristianize its community.
I would say then, a country church is efficient if it not only gets its people “right with God” but also right with one another; if it not only saves them for the life of heaven, but helps them to begin the heavenly life right now; if it not only furnishes opportunity for the worship of God, in simplicity and truth, but also proves the sincerity of its worship in deeds of Christian service; if it furnishes spiritual vision and power, faith, hope and love, those unseen things that are eternal, but also mints these essentials of religion in the pure gold of brotherly sympathy and kindness.
The Church’s Broad Function: Community Service
The efficient church will not only perform the priestly function of mediating between God and men, until in the holy place men feel the hush and peace and power of God’s presence. It will also inspire men in a practical way to perform the duties of life. It will not only bring men into the conscious presence of God. It will somehow bring the love of God into the lives of men. It will increase the kindness and brotherliness and sympathy of men and women toward each other. It will stimulate fair-dealing in all business relations and put an end to injustice towardthe weak. It will help to reduce poverty, vice and crime. It will encourage pure politics and discourage graft. It will set a high standard for the play life of the community and make amusements purer and more sensible. It will even endeavor to raise the level of practical efficiency on every farm, making men really better farmers because they are real Christians. It will help to make more efficient homes and schools, to give every boy and girl a fair chance for a clean life, a sound body, a trained mind, helpful friendships and a useful career.
The efficient country church will definitely serve its community by leading, when possible, in all worthy efforts at community building, in uniting the people in all cooperative social endeavors for the general welfare, in arousing a real love for country life and loyalty to the country home; and in so enriching the life of its community as to make “country living as attractive for them as city living, and the rural forces as effective as city forces.”
Its High Responsibility: Spiritual Leadership
The inaugural program of Jesus in Luke 4:18-19 suggests the business of his followers: to minister to the vital necessities of needy men. Broadly speaking, every work for human betterment is “our Father’s business,” yet the supreme function of the church is spiritual. It stands in a material world for an unseen God and an eternal life. It must constantly furnish spiritual vision and inspiration to weary men and women for the living of their lives. To do this,the church must provide the opportunity for public worship, in sincerity, impressiveness and truth. It must somehow bring the life of God into the lives of men.
Surely the church owes the community a prophetic service also, bringing God’s great messages to human lives, throbbing with divine sympathy for all human needs, courageously challenging the man to whom the vision comes, to live the better life, and offering practical and immediate help, the help of Christ, to live that life. The spiritual service of a vital church will include a vivid portrayal of the Christ, his person, his teachings, his radiant character, his saving power, the dynamic for life which flows from him into every life which accepts his comradeship. All this and more.
We should avoid however the dangerous distinction between the sacred and the secular. The superficial exaltation of the spiritual function of the church is sometimes merely a cloak for laziness. Often a well conducted church social has spiritual results and a boys’ camp becomes a “means of grace.” Unless a man is pure spirit, the work of the church is more than “saving souls.” Soul and body are in this life inseparable and interdependent. A saved man must be redeemed soul and body, in mind and spirit, as well as in all his social relations.
A religion which aims merely to save a man’s soul, and otherwise neglects him, is superficial, and fails to appeal to a whole man’s manhood. The subtle reactions of life warn us that thesoul’s environmentmust be redeemed, or it stands little chance ofpermanent salvation. Here is the nexus between individual and social salvation. Christian social service is necessary to conserve the results of evangelism. Unite them, and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Let the Church Furnish Dynamic and Leadership
But the church should not scatter its energies and “dilute its evangelism” by attempting to do everything as an organization. Let it discharge its responsibility for social welfareindirectlywhen possible, through other organizations or individuals. Its broadest service will ever be, as in the past, to furnish the inspiration and the dynamic for many secondary agencies for social service and human betterment. But the church must either do the needed work orget it done.
It should duplicate no social machinery or effort, but should supplement all other local institutions and perfect their service by its own service of the higher life of the community. Let the church be the climax of the social, educational, philanthropic, health-restoring, peace-preserving forces of the community. Ideally it will federate them all in community leadership. Where these forces are lacking, the church should assume these functions, if the community welfare demands it; as actually takes place on many a mission field.
Well might every country church adopt this platform, adapted from the Open Church League: “Inasmuch as the Christ came not to be ministered unto but to minister, this church, moved by his spirit ofministering love, seeks to become the center and source of every beneficent and philanthropic effort, and to take a leading part in every movement which has for its end the alleviation of human sorrow and suffering, the saving of men and the bettering of this township as a part of the great Kingdom of God. Thus we aim to save all men and all of the man, by all just means; abolishing so far as possible the distinction between the religious and the secular, and sanctifying all means to the great end of saving the world for Christ.”
II. Some Elements of Serious Weakness.
It is with no lack of sympathy for country ministers or churches that we offer these suggestions as to what is wrong with the country church. Often the conditions of the environment are largely responsible, and sometimes the churches are not to blame. Many of them are facing their difficulties nobly, not a few of them successfully. In fact many country churches are doing better than most city churches. By way of diagnosis the following brief suggestions are offered to account in part for the serious difficulty in the present situation.
1.A Depleted Constituency.The first element in the problem is theinevitable isolationin the open country and the depletion of population in thousands of villages. We find often not merely loss of numbers, but impoverished vitality in many of those who remain. This isweakness in personality, always an ultimate problem.
2.Economic Weakness.Impoverished soil, poor agricultural conditions, and bad farming are found all too frequently. The church immediately suffers. It is no mere coincidence that the best country churches are always found among successful farmers. The church can hardly be more prosperous than its community.
3.Lack of Social Cooperation.Extreme individualism is still the curse of the open country. There has been little cooperation yet in industry, recreation, or religion. Consequently the church has been too often merely an occasional congregation of separate individuals with few interests in common; instead of a working body of vitally interested people, organized for the redemption of the community.
4.Wasteful Competition.This particular factor is not very serious in the South; but elsewhere there are usually found too many rival churches, selfishly struggling for life, but doing little to serve their community. This condition is the result of excessive individualism, selfishly insisting on its own peculiar sect; or the depletion of a once populous village; or the early blunders of denominational “strategy,” starting a church where it never was needed.
5.Poor Business Management.We are seldom likely to find any business system in the country church. As a rule they have no financial policy, no plan for the future, small salaries for the ministers and often in arrears. Their short-sighted method is simply “the short-haul” on the pocket-book, with a subscription paper; planning only for the current year. Inefficiency of course results from such poor business.
This chart shows a portion of Center County, Pennsylvania, in which there are 16 churcheswithin a circle with a radius of three miles. There are 24 churches within the larger circlehaving a radius of four miles. Several other churches are in close proximity, making in allthe 29 churches shown in this sparsely settled community.
6.Moral Ineffectiveness.Many country churches have lost the respect of their communities and their local support, because of their lack of vital religion which makes character and deeds of spiritual power. They do not prove their genuine brotherliness in an unselfish service of the community. Amid their petty rivalries, they are struggling merely to save themselves rather than the community, forgetting the words of Jesus: “He that would save his life shall lose it.”
7.Narrow Vision of Service.The country church is seldom progressive and has little idea of the modern social vision. Few churches have yet seen their great chance to serve broadly the interests and needs of the whole community. They flatter themselves upon their faithfulness to spiritual standards; though the fact is, they are neglecting a great opportunity and hence missing the loyal appreciation of their people.
8.Inadequate Leadership.The country ministry is too apt to be an untrained ministry, sadly lacking in professional preparation. Lack of a strong personality in pulpit and parsonage makes church success difficult. But the main weakness here is the fact that a majority of the country churches actually haveno pastor at all. They have a preacher, part of the time; but he lives in the village seven miles away. He supplies the pulpit, marries the living and buries the dead.The lack of a resident pastor living on the land with his peopleis almost a fatal weakness in a country church. The most eloquent preaching never compensates for this loss.
III. Some Factors Which Determine Country Church Efficiency.
Surely this matter of making a country church successful is no simple problem. It is complex enough to be fascinatingly interesting. Its very difficulty is a challenge to strong men. We shall attempt to state the most important factors which make for efficiency. All are important; some are quite essential. A church is efficient in proportion as it has developed these elements of strength.
1.A Worthy Constituency
It is very evident that the first essential factor is folks. The reason some earnest ministers prefer to work in the city is because there are more people there. A congregation to lead in worship and to inspire with ideals for Christian service is quite essential. A minister must have people to whom to minister. Churches can live without bells, organs, pulpits, fine architecture, or even ministers for awhile. We can sing without hymn books or choir; pray without missal, prayer book or surplice; worship comfortably without cushions or carpets; commune without silver plates or golden chalices or individual glasses. The one thing which is thesine qua nonis a congregation. The church must have people.
This does not mean that success will depend upon great numbers, though depleted numbers cause serious discouragement. A country minister has a splendid chance for a thorough,intensivework with individuals and families, which is denied a pastor with alarger flock. Yet the church must have a constituency or it is not needed and of course cannot succeed.
2.Local Prosperity and Progressive Farming
Some one may ask, “Why haven’t you mentioned first of all the blessing of God, as the great essential to success?” Surely unless the Lord builds the house he labors in vain that builds it. We are simply assuming this as an axiom. Our work must always be done in partnership with God. Success itself is the evidence of His favor. To win that favor we must take the natural steps to win success.
Our second suggestion is local prosperity and progressive farming. Dr. Wilson calls the country church “the weather vane of community prosperity.” It might be more accurately called thebarometer, for the church shows promptly the degree of the pressure of economy due to poor crops or bad farming. Impoverished soil, poor agricultural conditions and bad farming explain the failure of many a country church. You can build a city on a rock (like New York) or even on the sand (like Gary); but you cannot hope to build a prosperous country community or rural church onpoor soil.
Professor Carver tells us forcibly that “the world will eventually be a Christian or a non-Christian world according as Christians or non-Christians prove themselves more fit to possess it,—according as they are better farmers, better business men, better mechanics, better politicians.” It is certainly the wisest kind of policy for the church to help to make its communityprosperous. It is not only a fine way to serve the community; it is a prime essential to its own ultimate success. Many a rural church is languishing because of bad economics in the community. Let it face the problem man-fashion and do something besides pray about it. Let it prove the sincerity of its prayers by earnest plans and deeds to make its community prosperous.
This is exactly what was done in a certain Wisconsin village. By the fiat of the railroad, which suddenly changed its plans, half the people moved away in a day, leaving community institutions maimed and everybody discouraged. It was the wise minister who saved the day by organizing the farmers and planning with them a new local industry. He induced a pickle factory to build in the community provided the farmers would raise cucumbers on a large scale. He was even able to turn the village store into a cooperative enterprise which succeeded in running at a profit. This minister saved his church by saving the community.
That prince of country ministers, Johann Friedrich Oberlin, laid the foundation of his sixty years of pastoral success in the Vosges Mountains in the new local prosperity which was developed under his leadership. He was utterly unable to succeed until he had taught his people how to become better farmers, and thus to rise above the low level of incompetence and ignorance which had kept them almost immune to religious appeals and had kept their churches pitiable failures. His astonishing success won for him the official recognition of the Legion of Honor fromthe King of France. What he was able to do under great difficulties could be done to-day by thousands of rural churches and ministers, if they determined to do it. Let them first make their community prosperous; then their church will share the prosperity.
3.Community Socialization
Prosperous and happy rural communities have outgrown the selfish independence of the pioneer past and have learned how to live together effectively in a socially cooperative way. But a great many rural places are still scourged by grudges and feuds and other evidences of individualism gone to seed. This accounts also for many small churches, the result of church quarrels. Country churches cannot succeed until the people learn how to live together peaceably and effectively, to cooperate in many details of the community life, to utilize the various social means for community welfare. To be sure the church can greatly help in this socializing process. It can lead in making the local life cooperative, educationally, agriculturally, socially, morally; and, if it succeeds, the church will be the first to reap the rewards of a finer comradeship.
4.A Community-Serving Spirit
Many a country church is dying from sheer selfishness. The same of course is true in the city. Many people doubtless think the church exists for the benefit of its members only. If this were true, the church would be simply a club. Selfishness is slow suicidefor an individual. It is equally so for a church. A self-serving spirit in a church is contrary to the spirit of Jesus and it kills the church life. It is a bad thing for a church to have the reputation for working constantly just to keep its head above water, struggling to keep alive, just to go through the motions of religious activity, yet making no progress. Many a church is dying simply for lack of a good reason for being. Can you not hear the voice of the Master saying, “The church that would save its life shall lose it; but the church that is willing to lose its life, for my sake, the same shall save it”?
Let the church adjust its program to a larger radius. Let it be acommunity-wideprogram. If there are other churches, it will of course not invade the homes of families under their care. But aside from this, it will plan its work to reach out to all neglected individuals as well as to serve all social and moral interests of the community as a whole. Let its motto be “We seek not yours but you.” The church will not be able to save the community until it proves its willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the community.
5.A Broad Vision of Service and Program of Usefulness
This next factor making for efficiency is very closely related to the last.A useful country church will not die.A church that is really serving its community in vital ways will so win the appreciation of the people that they will support it because they love it. Some churches and ministers seem too proud toinclude in their program anything but preaching, praying, hymn-singing, with an occasional funeral, wedding and baked-bean supper to break the monotony. In a social age like this, with multiplying human needs, such a church is on the way to death. The church must recognize its responsibility, as its Master recognized it, to meet all the human needs of its people. Many country communities with meager social equipment, often with manifold human needs absolutely unmet, demand the broadest kind of brotherly service on the part of the church, for their mutual good. The church need not do everything itself as an institution. Its great work will ever be the work of inspiration. But where there are serious gaps in the social structure, the church must somehow fill the gaps. It must do the work or get it done.
It rejoices us to find churches all along the country-side to-day that have welcomed this great opportunity for broad usefulness, and have gained a new vitality and an increasing success by facing all the needs of the community and broadening their vision and program of service accordingly.
6.United Christian Forces in the Community
We are confronted now by one of the most serious factors in our problem. The pitiable sub-division of rural Christendom into petty little struggling, competing churches makes religion a laughing-stock and a failure. We are saddened by it. By and by we shall get so ashamed of it that we will stop it! Many men of leadership and influence are working on the problemand we can see improvement in many directions.
Wasteful sectarianism is a sin in the city; but it is a crime in the country. It is a city luxury which may be justified perhaps where there is a wealth of people; but it is as out of place among the farms as sheet asphalt pavements or pink satin dancing pumps. Sectarianism is not religion. It is merely selfishness in religion. A sincere country Christian will be willing to sacrifice his sectarian preference, as a city luxury which the country cannot afford.
The great Puritan movement against conformity to an established church settled forever the great principle that any company of earnest Christians have a right to form a churchwhen conditions justify it. But we have seen in this country, as nowhere else in the world, the absurd extremes of this great liberty. Sects have been formed to maintain the wickedness of buttons and the piety of hooks and eyes; and for many another tenet almost as petty. Churches of “Come-Outers,” “Heavenly Recruits” and “The Hephzibah Faith” appeal to the fancy of theological epicures. Colonies of “Zionites” and “The Holy Ghost and Us Society” have been established, mainly for the exploiting of some shrewd fanatic and his pious fraud.
With 188 sects now in America, we have come to the point when sensible people have a right to insist that an unnecessary church is a curse to a community. Its influence is sadly divisive. Its maintenance is a needless tax. It embodies, not true piety, but pharisaic selfishness. The community has a right to keep it out for self-protection. The social consciousnesshas now developed enough to teach us that the right of individuals to form endless churches must be curtailed, for the general welfare, exactly as other individual rights, such as carrying pistols, public expectoration, working young children, and riding bicycles on city sidewalks, have to be surrendered in a social age. Thus social cooperation is displacing individualism and religious cranks should not be immune to the law of progress. To insist upon individual rights to form a new sect or to burden an overchurched community with a needless church is a grave social injustice and a sin against the Kingdom of God.
A small village in South Dakota applied the referendum to the question whether they should have a Methodist or a Congregational church. The plan was proposed by the village Board of Trade. It was entered into by the whole community as a sensible proposition and the losers accepted the verdict, under pressure of public opinion. The village has but one church to-day. When denominational leaders agree to force no church upon such a community as this, and to help support no church with home missionary funds where it is neither needed nor wanted, the cause of religion in small communities will be greatly advanced. Fortunately some of the larger churches are frankly accepting this principle and are working with a large measure of comity and denominational reciprocity.
The New Christian Statesmanship
For many years the leading churches in Maine have had an “Interdenominational Comity Commission”which has kept out unnecessary churches, and has reduced the number in overchurched communities by a sort of denominational reciprocity. Other states in New England and the West have adopted the plan, and now the Home Mission Council has recently organized on a national scale, in the interest of all Protestant churches.
The Interdenominational Commission of North Dakota includes the Baptist, Congregational, Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian churches of the state. This simple statement of their working agreement is an excellent one:
(1) No community in which the concurring denominations have a claim should be entered by any other denomination through its official agencies without conference with the denominations having such claim.
(2) A feeble church should be revived if possible rather than a new one established to become its rival.
(3) The preference of a community should always be regarded in determining what denomination should occupy the field.
Such a plan wins our respect. We may have faith that the next few years will see much progress in reducing the disgrace of unholy competition between Christian churches that ought to be working together.
May denominational reciprocity soon relieve our country communities of their unnecessary churches which are simply a burdensome tax and a hindrance. Local churches often would unite if the outside subsidy were withdrawn which prolongs their separate existence. Church union is a question, not of mechanics,but of biology. It is a matter oflife. It is useless to unite churches forcibly which have not beengrowing together. They would fall apart next week! But they are doubly certain to grow together if encouraged from their denominational headquarters.
And by and by, through the new Christian statesmanship of denominational reciprocity, we shall have a Baptist village, and a Methodist village, and a Congregational village, all contiguous, and with united Christian forces in each community. It will be a great boon to the Kingdom of God,—and it will not even disturb the equilibrium of the denominational year books!
Blessed is the rural community that has but one church. But where there are several, let them work together as closely as possible, presenting a united front against the forces of evil in an aggressive campaign for righteousness. Local church federations, and township or county ministers’ unions greatly help to develop a spirit of unity and really good results. A local federation of men’s church brotherhoods, uniting all the churchmen of a township, is a splendid thing. It affects the whole church and community life. It speedily puts friendliness in the place of suspicion, and enthusiastic cooperation in place of jealous rivalry.
7.A Broad Christian Gospel, in Place of Sectarian Preaching
One of the signs of a decadent church is excessive emphasis upon sectarian trifles. When adult Sunday school classes have not studied the lesson for the daythey fall back on denominational hobbies! A holy zeal for righteousness costs something. The selfish zeal for one’s sect is cheap. There is little of this now in the cities; but the country is scourged by petty sectarian teaching both in the pulpit and in the Sunday school; and the country is very tired of it. Ordinary mortals are simply bored by it and will no longer come to hear it.
People are still hungry for the real gospel. The great affirmations of religion: The priceless value of human life, the reality of God our loving Father, the immortality of the soul, the law of the harvest, the gospel of a Saviour, et cetera, still challenge the attention and win the hearts of men. Let us emphasize the great Christian fundamentals on which most Christian people heartily agree. Let us add to these high teachings of universal Christianity the simple social teachings of Jesus, his every day practical teachings for human life in mutual relations, and we shall have a winning message for the sensible minds and hearts of country people.
8.A Loyal Country Ministry, Adequately Trained and Supported
This is one of the ultimate factors in our problem, perhaps the most difficult of all. Leadership is always of utmost importance in social problems. A splendid leader often brings real success out of serious difficulties. There are hundreds of such splendid leaders in country parsonages to-day, and they deserve all the high appreciation and cordial recognition theyhave won. But when we consider our 70,000 rural ministers as a body, we find three things to be true: They are miserably paid. They are usually untrained. Their pastorates are too short to be really successful. The churches are of course more to blame for this condition than the ministers.
We must have a permanently loyal country ministry for life. Making the country ministry simply the stepping stone to the city church has been a most unfortunate custom even up to the present day. The country ministry must be recognized as a specialized ministry, fully as honorable as the city ministry, demanding just as fine and strong a man,—possibly even more of a man, for many a minister has succeeded in the city after failing in the country. The country minister must somehow get a vision of his great task as a community builder, like Johann Friedrich Oberlin, that greatest of country pastors. He must find an all-absorbing life-mission claiming all his powers and demanding his consecration as thoroughly and enthusiastically as the call to the foreign mission field. Then let himgo into it for life, determined to do his part, a whole man’s part, in redeeming country life and making it, what it normally is, the best life in all the world to live. Staying year after year in the same parish is the secret of success in the case of most of the conspicuously successful country pastors. Only thus can a man really become the parson of the village, a person of dominant influence in all the affairs of the people.
This ideal suggestion of long country pastorates meets with two objections. Laymen are saying, “How can you expect us to keep a minister after he has saidall he knows?” And some of the ministers will say, “How can you expect us to stay, on less than a living wage?” At present both objections are perfectly valid. Too many ministers are untrained men, and therefore fail to succeed for more than a year or two. And certainly an underpaid minister cannot be blamed for taking his family where he can support them respectably.
As near as can be determined, about 20% of rural ministers the country over (including all denominations) are educated men; though probably not over 10% of them have had a full professional training.[34]They are about as successful as any other professional man can be who lacks his special training for his life work. There is a great demand fortrainedministers. The writer receives very many more requests from churches in a year than he can furnish with men. Yet the theological seminaries are training few men for the rural churches. Most of the graduates go either to the cities or the villages, where there is a living wage. Dr. Warren H. Wilson figures that a country minister with a wife and three children, in order to educate his family, keep a team and provide $100 annual payment for insurance for his old age, must have at least $1,400 salary. There are ministers who are able to do this on less,—but not very much less. There certainly ought to be aminimumwage of $800 and a parsonage, or $1,000 cash, for every minister. A church paying less than this is simply stealing from the minister’s family. Churchesunable to pay this minimum living wage ought to unite with a neighboring church or close their doors, except for itinerant preaching.[35]
In several denominations the plan of maintaining a minimum salary for their ministers is being attempted. We have space for a single illustration. The East Ohio Conference, Cleveland District, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, under the direction of Rev. N. W. Stroup, as district superintendent, has succeeded in raising the minimum to $750. It was estimated in advance that $2,500 would have to be raised by the stronger churches in the district to accomplish this result; but in the very first year only $1,000 of this sum was actually required. As soon as the movement was made public, many of the weaker churches developed courage and grit enough to raise their own pastor’s salary to a respectable figure, and maintained their self-respect. Other churches are expected to do the same next year.
At the writer’s urgent suggestion, in a public address last fall, a Michigan church, paying its minister only $350 a year, raised the salary to $800 and secured a bright young college graduate as pastor. They now report that it is just as easy to finance the church on the present self-respecting basis as it was to run a cheap church last year!
9.A Liberal Financial Policy
This reminds us very forcibly that one factor essential to country church success is a liberal financial policy. In the smaller country churches we seldom find any business policy, and no plan at all for the future. The most common method is the annual subscription paper, with special subscriptions for repairs or emergencies. The motive is apparently strict economy rather than efficiency. It never pays to run a cheap church, for it cheapens the whole enterprise. More and more the weekly-payment pledge system is coming into use and with it a careful planning of the budget at the beginning of the year, guided by an earnest purpose to keep the church business-like, the minister promptly paid, the property well in repair and the enterprise spiritually successful. Often the new consecration of the pocket-book has been the first symptom of a thorough-going revival.
10.Adequate Equipment
A large proportion of country churches are simply one-room buildings. This explains many failures. In order to serve the community at all adequately, the church must have social rooms for a variety of neighborhood purposes, and it must make provision for its Sunday school. About four-fifths of the boys and girls in the Sunday schools of America live in the rural districts. They should be given good rooms. Without an effective building for social and educational purposes,—a parish house or at least a vestry,—the country church is seriously handicapped. Witha good equipment the church often becomes the social center for the whole neighborhood.
11.A Masculine Lay Leadership Developed and Trained
It takes more than a minister to make a church successful. The King’s Business requires MEN. Women are usually active and loyal. The men are often just asloyalbut less active because of lack of opportunity. The most enthusiastic meetings the writer has attended for months were in a rural county in Michigan, a county without a trolley. The meetings were held for three days under the auspices of the Men and Religion Forward Movement and all the forty-five Protestant churches of the county were represented by ministers and laymen. The laymen outnumbered the ministers about ten to one and they showed the keenest interest in the proposition to make the work of religion in their county a man’s job.
Those men caught the vision of service, and every month during the winter, meetings led by laymen were held in every school house of that county, carrying the five-fold message of the great Men and Religion Movement into every rural neighborhood; the messages of personal evangelism, of definite Bible study, of world-wide missions, of social service to better their community, and constructive personal work to save their boys. This is a program of religious work for MEN. Only men can do it; but mencando it, with a little training and wise leadership. The results no man can foretell. But it must result in great blessingfor the men and for their communities, and new efficiency and appreciation for their country churches.
12.A Community Survey to Discover Resources and Community Needs
Without multiplying further these factors which make for efficiency, we mention but one more. Until recently country churches have been conducted on the principle that “human nature is the same everywhere,” and “one country village is like all the rest.” But scientific agriculture has suggested to us that we should make a scientific approach to our church problem as well as to our soil problem. Country communities arenotall alike,—far from it. Social, economic, moral, educational, political, personal conditions vary greatly in different localities. Churches miss their aim unless they study minutely these conditions. There is in progress now a religious survey of the entire state of Ohio. Quite a number of counties in Pennsylvania, New York, Missouri, Indiana and elsewhere have been carefully studied for religious purposes. Valuable reports of these studies are available as guides for similar work elsewhere. The best of this work has been done by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions under Dr. W. H. Wilson’s direction.
The general purpose of the survey hardly needs to be defended. It is simply the application to the work of the church of the modern social method of finding the facts in order to prevent wasted effort, in order to utilize all available resources and minister to all real human needs. It augurs well for the church of the future.
We have every reason to hope that with the progress of the great Country Life Movement the Country Church is coming to a new day of usefulness; with people living under modern conditions, with local prosperity and progressive farming, with their communities well socialized and cooperating, with a community-serving spirit in the church, guided by a broad vision of service and program of usefulness; with united Christian forces and decreasing sectarianism; with a loyal country ministry adequately trained, and sustained by a liberal financial policy; with an adequate equipment making the church a social center; with an enthusiastic masculine lay leadership developed and guided by a community survey to undertake the work which will best serve the needs of their people, the Kingdom of Heaven will surely come. It sounds like the millennium! Perhaps it will be, when it comes! But in many respects we can see it coming, as, one after another, these factors come to stay. May God speed the day of the broadly efficient country church. It will mean the redemption of the country.
IV. Some Worthy Allies of the Country Church.
The Country Sunday school
Foremost among the allies of the country church is the Sunday school. There are few churches that lack this most important auxiliary, and there are tens of thousands of independent schools for Bible study located in the open country where there are no churches or preachers at all. Often the Sunday school, being non-sectarian, unites all the people ofthe community, and is an institution of large influence.
Three-fourths of the total Sunday schools of the country are in the rural sections (villages under 2,500 population). They are much more representative of the population than are the city schools. They are usually really community institutions. Men of local influence preside as superintendents and many adults attend as regularly as the children. While the preachers come and go, and are usually non-residents anyway, Sunday school officers and teachers remain in the community as the permanent religious leaders. Thus the Sunday school is dignified as not merely a child’s institution but one that includes men and women of all ages and ministers to the deepest needs of all.
The Sunday school in the country is far more important relatively than it is in the town. In fact the country people in many places think more of their Sunday school than they do of the church. The Sunday school meets every Sunday of the year. It is a layman’s institution. But church services are held only when they can get a preacher; which does not average oftener than every other Sunday. On the average Sunday throughout the year, in two denominations only in the South, there are 17,000 churches without preaching services. But their Sunday schools are doubtless in session regularly. Sometimes the Bible school superintendent does not attend the preaching service even when there is one. His Sunday school is his church.
A careful religious survey of three typical counties in Indiana by field investigators of the Presbyterianchurch revealed the fact that the Sunday school is far from being a child’s institution, there being nearly as many members over 21 as under 14. The total enrollment was found to be divided into almost equal thirds, children under 14, adults over 21, and youth between those ages. There were more men in the Sunday schools than in the churches. 40% of the church membership were males; while of the Sunday-school membership over 14, 45% were males. Two-fifths of the teachers in these country Sunday schools were discovered to be men,—a much larger proportion than in the cities.
Country Sunday-school Teaching
With a vast opportunity, the country Sunday school really succeeds only moderately. There is great room for improvement in its methods. Occasionally you will find a country school conducted on as modern lines as the best in the city; but usually they are fully as defective as the local public schools, and for similar reasons. The state Sunday-school associations are making real progress in standardizing the schools, introducing semi-graded lessons and something of the modern system. But the teachers are usually untrained, though well-meaning, and teach mostly by rote. Stereotyped question and printed answer are consistently recited by the younger classes, without stirring more than surface interest. The older classes often make the lesson merely a point of departure and soon take to the well-worn fields of theological discussion on trite themes of personal hobbies. Or ifthe teacher happens to be fluent and the class more patient than talkative, he makes the teaching purely homiletic, and, like the apostles of old, “takes a text and then goes everywhere preaching the gospel!”
About 90% of churches in the open country have only one room. This means utter lack of adequate Sunday-school equipment, and often ten to twenty classes jostling elbows in the same room. There is seldom intentional disorder, but thenoiseis often very distracting, as all the teachers indulge in loud talking simultaneously in order to be heard.
The country Sunday school surely has a great future. It has the field and the loyalty of its people. It is gradually being rescued from the monotony of fruitless routine. The teaching is becoming less a matter of parrot-like reciting and weak moralizing and more a matter of definite instruction. The teachers are here and there being trained for their task, not only in a better knowledge of the Bible but of boy life and girlhood at different stages. Definite courses of study are more and more introduced, planned to run through a series of years, culminating in a graduation at about the age of seventeen, with annual examinations for promotion; making due allowance for graduate classes and teacher training groups. So thorough is the work, in some places practically the entire population of a rural community is connected with the Sunday school.
Bible Study in the Country
It is an unfortunate fact that most Sunday-school quarterlies and lesson studies are produced in the city;yet the Bible itself is a book of rural life, with the exception of some of the writings of Paul. No wonder country folks appreciate it. As Dr. Franklin McElfresh well says, “The Bible sprang from the agonies of a shepherd’s soul, from the triumph of a herdsman’s faith, and the glory of a fisherman’s love. Its religion keeps close to the ground, and interprets the daily life of sincere men who live near to nature. One of the great days in the history of religion and liberty is on record when a vine-dresser named Amos stood up before the king of Israel to speak the burden of his soul. ‘Prophet,’ said he; ‘I am no prophet, only a plain farmer, but I came by God’s call to tell you the truth.’ This was the day-dawn of Hebrew prophecy.
“The Bible can best be interpreted in the country. It sprang from a pastoral people. It is full of the figures of the soil and the flock and the field. Its richest images are from the plain face of nature and the homely life of humble cottages.” Country Sunday schools need a lesson literature which can interpret to them the wonderful messages of the Book of books in terms of rural life; but meanwhile they are doing their best to discover these messages of life themselves.
The Rural Young Men’s Christian Association
A most valuable ally of the country church, in many parts of the country, is the Rural Young Men’s Christian Association, or the County Work, as it is usually called, because it is organized on the countybasis. It is serving the interests of the young men and boys of the village and open country in a most effective way. It is successfully supplementing the work of the country churches where they are making their worst failures, and it is often uniting rival churches in a common cause, to save the boys; which results in a new sympathy and an ultimately united religious community.
It is developing young manhood in body, mind and spirit, furnishing wholesome social activities and recreation, conducting clean athletics, encouraging clean sport and pure fun, stimulating true ambition and intelligent, constructive life plans for the discontented farm boy, cleaning him up morally and opening his eyes to see new religious ideals.
Through well-directed groups for Bible study and through quiet personal work, the country boys are led to the discovery that religion is “a man’s job” and that it is essential to a well-rounded life; and they come to a frank and normal religious experience which profoundly changes their outlook on life and gives them a new life efficiency.
This Association work is no experiment. For years it has been widely successful in many states and is promoted by the State and International Committees on scientifically sound principles, based on a close study of rural sociology and tried out by years of patient endeavor by well-trained men who are specialists in their field. It is one of the most promising just now of all the various lines of Young Men’s Christian Association work; and it is certainly as much needed as any branch of their work in the cities.
Working Principles
The County Work aims to save the country boy and develop him for Christian citizenship, not by the use of costly equipment, but by personality, trained, consecrated leadership; not by institutions but by friendship; not by highly-paid local secretaries, but by enlisting and training volunteer service; not by patronage and coddling but by arousing and directing the boy’s own active interests; always remembering that by the grace of God the redemptive forces in each community must be the resident forces.
It is good policy to make the county the geographical unit of this effective work. The county is the social unit politically, industrially, commercially; it should also be the unit of religious endeavor, particularly in rural sections. A county-wide campaign for righteousness under the direction of a trained Association Secretary, usually a college trained man and an expert in rural life, is a great thing for any county. Every rural county in the land ought to be organized speedily to get the benefit of this business-like modern plan of Christian service. The difficulty is to discover, enlist and train the necessary leaders.
A Campaign of Rural Leadership
It is doubtful if there is any organization working for the betterment of rural life which has a better chance to serve the interests of the whole countryside to-day than the Rural Young Men’s Christian Association. It represents a united Christendom, being representative of all the churches and their right arm insocial service. In a county where there may be twenty-nine varieties of churches, few of them strong enough for any aggressive work, and most of them mutually jealous and suspicious, the Rural Association Secretary comes in as a neutral, is soon welcome in churches of every name and gradually gains great influence. He is possibly a better trained man than most pastors in the county, and as he quietly develops his work they discover that he is a man who knows rural life, keeps abreast of the best agricultural science, is an expert in rural sociology and in the psychology of adolescence. He rapidly gathers the facts about the history and the present needs of the different townships in the county and constructs a policy for developing a finer local life, not only among the boys but the entire community.
If he stays long enough in the place, and is a man of the right sort, he speedily grows into a position of recognized leadership, gaining the confidence of the working farmers as a man of good sense, and of the professional men because he understands scientifically the underlying needs of the locality. Quite likely he is able to bring the ministers together in a county ministerial union of which he is apt to be made secretary or executive; and in some places he is able to federate most of the churches of many sects into a working federation for the religious and moral welfare of the county. Because he is a neutral, not working for the aggrandizement of any special church, though vitally interested in all and consecrated to the larger interests of the whole Kingdom of God, this man has the best possible leverage onthe country church situation. He can advise weak churches about their difficulties; and when two or more local churches ought to be gradually united, he can often tactfully and successfully bring them together, as no other individual or group of individuals could possibly do. He can with the grace of God develop the spirit of cooperation among the people without which any hasty or mechanical plan for union of diverse churches would be but a temporary experiment.
Under the direction of his County Committee, which includes some fifteen to twenty of the most influential Christian men of the county, this Association Secretary is often able to set scores of local leaders at work and train them for the special service to which they are best adapted; thus utilizing local leadership which has been largely going to waste through modest self-depreciation.
Gradually the office of the rural secretary becomes a sort of clearing house for all the popular interests and organizations in the county,—churches, schools, granges, farmers’ institutes, boards of trade, medical societies, Sunday schools, boys’ clubs of every sort, athletic clubs, civic associations and village improvement societies. Thus these various agencies are brought together for cooperative service of the countryside, learning to work together harmoniously with modern methods of efficiency.[36]
The County Work of the Young Women’s Christian Association
So successful has been the work of the Rural Young Men’s Christian Association, it has encouraged the National Board of the Young Women’s Christian Association to begin Christian work among women and girls in the country villages. There is unquestionably a wide field and a great usefulness for this branch of the Young Women’s Association work. It ought to be rapidly promoted and doubtless will be as fast as consecrated young women can be trained for it and their challenge met by people of wealth to consecrate their money for this purpose. Efficiency would be gained by working in practical union with the rural Young Men’s Christian Associations.
The Primacy of the Church in the Country
In all these activities it must be borne in mind that the Young Men’s and the Young Women’s Christian Associations are but auxiliaries of the church. The secretary is frankly a servant of the church, of all the churches. The main reason for emphasizing these agencies for rural redemption is the present divided condition of religious forces in the country. Where the churches are well united and cooperative; or better, where the community has but one church, a strong, influential organization, there is no valid reason why the church itself may not rightly assume the position of leadership in all matters of community welfare. Community building is the great work of the church after all; developing and strengthening the vital issues of lifein order that the community may become an efficient part of the great Kingdom of God. As rural Christendom becomes better united and better socialized, the church will come to its own again, as in the old days when it was the only outstanding institution in the community and rightly assumed the effective leadership in all matters vitally affecting the welfare of the people.
Here again, the problem is mainly one of personality. Given adequate leadership, the church can accomplish wonders as a genuine community builder. But a gun must be a hundred times heavier than the projectile it fires; else it will burst the gun. Small, petty personalities cannot hope for large results in real community leadership. The church needs masterful men, men of power and vision, ministers thoroughly trained for the work of their profession and men whose hearts are kept tender and humble by the spirit of the indwelling God.
V. Types of Rural Church Success.
Some Real Community Builders
With so many faithful men in country parsonages to-day who have seen the vision of broader service and permanent success, it would be invidious to suggest a list of names. It will be fully as safe to suggest something of their program. These prophets of the new day for the rural church are doing two distinct types of work. Some are making the village church the center of outreaching endeavor for the redemption of the surrounding country; others arevitalizing the church in the open country as a center of vital religion and broad service.
In Cazenovia, New York, for instance, we find a splendid instance of the effectiveness of the village church in overcoming its handicap with the people outside the village. In most places there is a two-mile dead-line for religion. Outside that limit the church’s influence is seldom felt. But here we find a pastor who has by friendly evangelism in school houses miles from his church, supported by social methods for enriching the daily life of the people, won scores of people to his Lord and Master, and greatly enlarged his church membership and its usefulness. There are many places where similar success is won by the same kind of earnest, efficient work by pastors and their laymen. Unquestionably the village church has a regal opportunity, as great as ever in the past.
The Church in the Open Country
There are many people, however, who doubt the possible success of the church in the open country. Some are advising concentrating efforts in the villages and centralizing church work there on the plan of the centralization of the public schools. In some places this may be wise; but to deny that a church in the open country can be successful is to fly in the face of the facts.
Given an adequate equipment for service, and a well-trained, tactful pastor who knows and loves country folks and lives with his people, splendid results may be expected. A church on the open prairie at Plainfield, Illinois, six miles from a railroad, hasbecome famous in recent years as an illustration of real success in community building. City people would say there is no community, for there is none in sight. But the people for miles around are bound vitally to that church as to their home, for it not only has served their many needs and won their personal appreciation and love, but it has set many of them at work in a worth-while cooperative service.