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WIT 
 
 New York 
 
 State College of Agriculture 
 
 At Cornell University 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 The 
 
 Professor Dwight Sanderson 
 
 Rural Sociology 
 
 Library 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BV 638.W75 
 
 The church at the center, 
 
 3 1924 014 012 490 
 

B Cornell University 
 
 M Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014012490 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS 
 
 Volumes Issued 
 
 The Church a Community Force. By Worth M. Tippy 
 The Church at the Center. By Warren H. Wilson 
 The Making of a Country Parish. By Harlow S. Mills 
 
 Cloth, 50 Cents, Prepaid 
 
 ADDITIONAL VOLUMES TO BE ISSUED 
 
THE CHURCH AT 
 THE CENTER 
 
 BY 
 
 WARREN H. WILSON 
 
 Author of The CHURCH OF THE OPEIf COUFTUr 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Missionary Education Movement of the 
 United States and Canada 
 
 1914 
 
W7^ 
 
 (^i37s^%(p1 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER FAGB 
 
 I Definitions . . . . i 
 
 II A Mode of Rural Survey for 
 Record and for Purposes of 
 Practical Exhibit . . 9 
 
 III The Country Church Program 17 
 
 IV Illustrations of Socialized Ru- 
 ral Church Work . . 43 
 
 V Suggestions for Rural Church- 
 Buildings . . . .69 
 
 VI The Town or Village Church 
 IN Leadership of Country 
 Life ..... 79 
 
 VII The Community Center Church 
 AS the Embodiment of Fed- 
 eration AND Religious Union g^ 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Farmer's Morning. Frontispiece 
 Blank for Map of the Community . 12 
 Ready for a Plowing Match . .26 
 The Du Page Church . . -72 
 
 Floor Plans of the Du Page Church 74 
 A Community Center . . .96 
 
DEFINITIONS 
 
 SOCIAL service is more than altruism 
 or betterment or uplift, all of which 
 are attempted for personal reasons. And 
 social service is something else than 
 neighborliness. It is help for a society 
 through an organization; such service as 
 a church can render a community. The 
 social value of a church is its usefulness in 
 the community. That church has social 
 value which satisfies the common needs. 
 In our Lord's time "the poor," "the sin- 
 ners," "the lost sheep of the house of Is- 
 rael," were the people whose needs were 
 common to all. To them Jesus gave his 
 own help and directed the first attention 
 of organized Christianity. 
 
 Social service in our time means organ- 
 ized service to those in whom the com- 
 [I] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 munity has a common interest. It is that 
 kind of help to render which one organizes 
 a group or joins a society. 
 
 In an address by Mr. John M. Glenn is 
 the following: "It is not enough that a 
 church shall take good care of its own 
 members, no matter how fully it may sup- 
 ply .them with spiritual food. No church 
 can claim to have done its duty or faced 
 its rightful responsibility, unless it has been 
 constantly alert to seek and to find every- 
 thing that is destructive of men's physique 
 and men's souls that may lie within its 
 reach. 
 
 "The churches have not, on the whole, 
 realized that they have a duty to assume 
 social responsibilities, to know and under- 
 stand their neighborhoods, their cities, and 
 their special localities, to examine into ac- 
 tual conditions of living and learn what 
 these are and what may be done to improve 
 them, and to insist that their own members 
 
 [2] 
 
DEFINITIONS 
 
 as well as the state shall do their utmost 
 to abolish patent existing evils. 
 
 "If a church has not inspired its mem- 
 bers to bold adventure in behalf of the 
 weak and for the sake of the community, 
 it has no right to call itself a church, nor 
 to think that it is listening to the call of 
 its great head." 
 
 That church has social force which leads 
 the community. It is a community church. 
 Its service is universal: as the Master 
 said, "It is the servant of all." Every 
 church has value to some people. Some 
 churches serve a few, some serve "the best 
 people," but the church with social force 
 serves all. 
 
 To serve all means selection. It does 
 not mean that the church with social force 
 has everybody in its congregation. The 
 community church may be attended by 
 only a part of the people, while serving 
 all the people. It is impossible to give 
 [3] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 identical help to each individual. No 
 church has any business to be more impar- 
 tial than her Master, who devoted him- 
 self to those whose needs were critical, and 
 therefore of common concern. In Christ's 
 time these people were "the prodigals," 
 "the lost pieces of money," "the lost sheep." 
 In the country community of our time the 
 church should serve the people who are 
 in danger of losing out, who may have to 
 leave the community. These are the sick, 
 the poor, the young men and women, old 
 people who find it hard to be "retired 
 farmers," the renters who till land they do 
 not own, the people who are in debt, and 
 the hired or foreign-born help. 
 
 The purpose of social service is to min- 
 ister to the whole community, the rich as 
 well as the poor, the learned as well as 
 the ignorant. The ministry to the poor, or 
 ignorant, or other needy persons is not 
 given them because one prefers the ignorant 
 [4] 
 
DEFINITIONS 
 
 or the poor, or because he has any aversion 
 to the rich or the learned. It is for the 
 reason that to serve the poor is to serve 
 all. To teach the ignorant is to help the 
 learned and to heal the sick is to minister 
 at the same time to the well. The only 
 vi^ay to minister to the whole community 
 is to help the needy. 
 
 To assist these or any of them is to help 
 everybody. Service of these is "service of 
 all." Whatever church helps them is leader 
 of the community, because to. satisfy their 
 needs is to make the community whole. 
 
 A certain character is found in those 
 who }oin a serving group or society. With- 
 out this character they would not be in a 
 community church, or if they were, they 
 would rebel against its spirit and oppose 
 its methods. This character is found per- 
 fectly embodied only in Jesus Christ. It 
 is the spirit of a consecrated servant whose 
 master is God. Every Christian man might 
 [5] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 well ask himself whether he would make 
 a good servant; whether he could wait on 
 table, take orders from another man; 
 whether he could cheerfully hold another 
 man's coat, or wash his feet. Jesus did 
 such things and his spirit has been called 
 the spirit of a servant. He called himself 
 the servant of God. This is the spirit of 
 the members of a community church. Held 
 together by like-mindedness, the traits 
 they have in common we call spirituality, 
 for theirs is the spirit which is found in 
 heaven, as we know heaven through the 
 Son of God, Jesus Christ, who came not 
 to be served, but to serve. These traits of 
 character are the evidence that men are re- 
 generate through Christ. 
 
 Knowledge is necessary for social serv- 
 ice, as well as a right disposition. For the 
 purpose of securing reliable knowledge 
 social surveys are made. Investigation 
 must be thorough in order that knowledge 
 [6] 
 
DEFINITIONS 
 
 may be accurate and reliable. Further- 
 more, the findings must be published to 
 all who are to take part in the service, be- 
 cause the work is democratic and the intel- 
 ligent participation of every Christian is 
 essential to the result. 
 
 There never was a time when full, large 
 Christianity was so evidently necessary as 
 now. The dependence of the Christian 
 Church upon education, its essential rela- 
 tion to assured and ample knowledge of 
 conditions, is exhibited in the task of com- 
 munity service to which all the churches 
 are putting their hands. The social force 
 of the Christian Church can be exerted 
 only by people of a devout spirit conscious- 
 ly giving themselves to the purposes of 
 Jesus Christ, and guided in their action by 
 all that may be known about the conditions 
 and the needs of mankind for whom the 
 Savior died. 
 
 In this book the country church is defined 
 [7] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 as the church in a community of less than 
 2,500 population. Generally these com- 
 munities have farming as the main concern. 
 Very few of them, except in mining sections, 
 depend for their living on anything except 
 farming, and the secondary businesses of 
 farming. So that the country church is 
 very closely associated with agriculture, 
 both in the village and in the open fields. 
 
 [8] 
 
II 
 
 A MODE OF RURAL SURVEY FOR 
 
 RECORD AND FOR PURPOSES 
 
 OF PRACTICAL EXHIBIT 
 
 SURVEY is the name for a systematic 
 study of a people, with a view to 
 serving them as they have need. The 
 people studied may be a parish or com- 
 munity; or a city, county, or larger social 
 population. The survey is orderly and sys- 
 tematic in method, comprehensive in the 
 facts . studied, so that nothing is left out of 
 account. Its purpose is an authoritative, 
 reliable report which will put an end to 
 hesitation and will render helpful service 
 to the whole community possible. It is 
 essential to a survey that it be published, 
 for it concerns both the helpers and the 
 [9] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 helped. Social service is always demo- 
 cratic and public. 
 
 There are two purposes of a Survey and 
 as a result there are two kinds of Survey. 
 One is for educational purposes, and is a 
 study of conditions well known to the 
 leader of a class, who desires through in- 
 vestigation to train and enlarge the mind 
 of his students. A good example of this 
 type of rural survey is Miss Anna B. 
 Taft's "Community Study for Country 
 Districts." An excellent method of sur- 
 veying a country community, especially if 
 it centers in a village or town, is entitled, 
 "A Method of Making a Social Survey 
 of a Rural Community," which is pub- 
 lished by Prof. C. J. Galpin of the Uni- 
 versity of Wisconsin. Each of these is so 
 clear and simple that it can be applied to 
 the purposes of a working group or class 
 in a country church. The value of Miss 
 Taft's "Community Study" is very great 
 
 [10] 
 
A RURAL SURVEY 
 
 in religious education. It should be used 
 to set a group of adults at work in the 
 service of their community. 
 
 The second purpose of a survey is rec- 
 ord. This type of survey has educational 
 value, but its main purpose is to record 
 and preserve a statement of the conditions 
 discovered in the country community, in 
 order that workers in the service of the 
 church and the community may return to 
 this record for reference and for authority 
 at a later time. We give in this chapter 
 the material for making such a survey, 
 (i) A Map of the Community 
 This should be drawn to scale, on the basis 
 of including in the community all the land, 
 households, business and social institutions 
 within a "team haul" radius of the church, 
 with the streams of water and highways, 
 trolley lines and railroads, traversing the 
 community. This graphic showing of the 
 community, with every institution and 
 [II] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 every household in its place, will do much 
 to make clear the problem of the church 
 in the country. It shows the whole of the 
 domain of the church, which is a part of 
 «lSir Map of the Community ^'.^ 
 
 L-LlbnrlM 
 iJI.SdoMOrHMrt 
 
 
 
 
 Htt«*"-*»*» 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Eacb ■quara npt«MDU oaa tqiu** a 
 
 [12] 
 
A RURAL SURVEY 
 
 the kingdom of God. Nothing is secular, 
 nothing common or material among the 
 possessions of God; so that every store, 
 every schoolhouse, and every farmhouse is 
 a part of the parish of a community church. 
 The measured areas will assist in draw- 
 ing the map to scale. Symbols on the 
 margin should be used to indicate the 
 various features of the countryside. 
 
 (2) Industrial and Religious Life 
 What IS the chief source of income in the com- 
 munity? How many persons are en- 
 gaged in it? How many members 
 
 of the church get their living in this industry? 
 
 Name other industries How 
 
 many are engaged in each industry ? 
 
 How many members of the church are there in 
 
 each of these industries ? From 
 
 which industrial group does the church fail to se- 
 cure members ? 
 
 How many of the population of the community 
 
 are old settlers? What proportion of 
 
 the church-membership is from this class? 
 
 How many foreign-born or of foreign- 
 born parentage ? -vHow many church- 
 
 [13] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 members from the foreign element in the popula- 
 tion? 
 
 Among the farmers what proportion own their 
 
 farms? What proportion of the 
 
 farmers are renters? What propor- 
 tion of the church-membership are farm renters? 
 
 (3) Social and Moral Life 
 
 Name in the order of their popularity the places 
 
 where men meet for informal conversation 
 
 Where do boys in their teens meet? 
 
 Name the public assembly or gathering 
 
 that is attended by the community in a body.... 
 
 How often does the community meet 
 
 as a whole ? Who is the most influ- 
 ential man. among the whole population? 
 
 .... What is his occupation? Give 
 
 the number of faijiilies in the community 
 
 Give the number of social gatherings or 
 
 recreational enterprises of a public nature in the 
 
 past six months What proportion 
 
 of these was provided by lodges ? 
 
 The Grange? Open societies? 
 
 The clubs? Public schools? 
 
 Churches ? 
 
 How many of these social gatherings were pro- 
 vided without pay? How many were 
 
 used as a means of raising money? 
 
 [14] 
 
A RURAL SURVEY 
 
 Name the forms of recreation or play practised in 
 
 the community Name those which 
 
 are morally wholesome What are 
 
 the churches doing to increase or to support whole- 
 some recreation? 
 
 How many saloons in the community? 
 
 .... Pool rooms ? Public dance 
 
 halls? Moving picture shows? 
 
 Theaters ? 
 
 How many arrests in the past twelve months? 
 
 Illegitimate births in the past twelve 
 
 months ? What centers of moral in- 
 fection? Is the moral tone of the 
 
 community improving? •. 
 
 (4) The Church and the Community 
 
 Name the churches in the community and state 
 
 denomination Which church is best 
 
 fitted in building?, Parsonage?.... 
 
 Land ? Seating capacity ? 
 
 Kitchen ? Parlors ? 
 
 Cemetery?. . , Horse sheds? 
 
 or other equipment to serve the needs of the com- 
 munity? Which church is next 
 
 in point of fittings or equipment? 
 
 Describe the financial condition of each church 
 in the following respects : Total amount raised for 
 
 local expenditures ? Amount paid 
 
 pastor? Amount given for benevo- 
 
 [15] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 lences? Mortgage on property?. 
 
 Amount raised from outside funds?. 
 
 State mode used by each church for raising 
 
 money? Pew rents? 
 
 Envelopes ? Plate contributions ? . . . , 
 
 Give membership of each church 
 
 .... Is it increasing? Give attendance of 
 
 each church Is it increasing? 
 
 Give membership of Sunday-school of each church 
 
 What religious service is needed in this com- 
 munity which no church provides? 
 
 How many ministers serve in the community? 
 
 Name them, giving opposite each name 
 
 the number of Sundays per month on which he 
 preaches in the community and place of residence 
 
 of the minister Which minister is 
 
 most actively interested in the whole community? 
 
 [i6] 
 
Ill 
 
 THE COUNTRY CHURCH 
 PROGRAM 
 
 THE church needs a program nowa- 
 days, because religion, which is as 
 precious in men's eyes as ever it was, 
 has changed its emphasis. We used to 
 have a religion of fear and its program 
 was very simple. It was to bring men out 
 of fear into comfort and confidence. Men 
 still fear the unseen and the old program 
 is a good program, but the sense of fear is 
 no longer so mighty as the sense of use 
 or value. We need a new program because 
 the church has nowadays to demonstrate 
 its value and to increase its usefulness to 
 all men. 
 Worship is the first and the last of the 
 [17] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 program in the country. The purpose of 
 the church is to bring men near to God, and 
 worship is the method of drawing near to 
 God. Orderly worship is, above all, neces- 
 sary to the country church. The perfection 
 of details, foresight as to procedure and 
 dignity in the public service of worship, 
 are essential to all good work. No min- 
 ister can mend throughout the week what 
 he can mar on the Sunday morning. A 
 church does not need to be liturgical to be 
 reverent. The simplest worshipers are 
 they who often have the holiest places of 
 worship, and convey the most of fear and 
 awe and love in their public services. But 
 before any program of active service, the 
 orderly worship of the house of prayer is 
 to be regarded as the minister's chief ser- 
 vice. The worship of the Lord's day is the 
 highest expression of community life. It 
 is the privilege which the minister of re- 
 ligion shares with no other public servant. 
 [18] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 (i) In all its work the church deals 
 with individuals. Its purpose is always to 
 bring men to God, through obedience to 
 a personal Savior, therefore it is in all 
 things an evangelistic and educational in- 
 stitution. Every church should regularly 
 preach the gospel of personal salvation. It 
 is wise to let no year pass without at least 
 one season of evangelism. Leading pas- 
 tors in the country have their preferred 
 times for spiritual quickening. We recom- 
 mend here only that the church foresee the 
 time of its evangel and at the beginning of 
 the year plan for a harvest of souls. In 
 order to win men to loyal, obedient service 
 in the church, which is "the body of 
 Christ," it is better that the pastor be the 
 evangelist and that the work be done by 
 the people of the church through faithful, 
 simple preaching and personal work. 
 
 (2) The teaching of the Bible is the 
 greatest means of conversion through the 
 [19] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 building of personal character. The Sun- 
 day-school is organized for this purpose. 
 It should be taken seriously by all and its 
 work done in no slovenly or careless man- 
 ner, but with the utmost thoroughness. The 
 minister himself in a small church may 
 well be the superintendent. This is his 
 opportunity to teach. He should certainly 
 be identified with the school, holding him- 
 self and every other teacher strictly to ac- 
 count for presence or absence. Systematic 
 and thorough methods, with classes graded 
 upon the public school standards, should 
 prevail in the Sunday-school. The pur- 
 pose of the work is to bring all the children 
 naturally through the development of 
 knowledge along with the growth in char- 
 acter to acceptance of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The teaching of the Bible from the pul- 
 pit in simple terms, with homely illustra- 
 tions from the farm, from nature, and from 
 that field of experience common to the an- 
 [20] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 cient Hebrews and to modern country peo- 
 ple, is essential to the educational service 
 of the church. 
 
 Family prayer should be diligently or- 
 ganized among the families of the congre- 
 gation. It is a mistake to suppose that the 
 family altar is in our time unnecessary or 
 that it cannot be set up. Canadian churches 
 are alive to the value and necessity of fam- 
 ily worship. There are churches in city 
 and in country throughout all North Amer- 
 ica in which as large a proportion of the 
 families have the reading of the Bible and 
 prayer together as the proportion who do 
 thorough Sunday-school work. These 
 three factors in the teaching of the country 
 church make up a complete program of 
 instruction, and the basis of all is the im- 
 parting of gospel truth to the growing, 
 absorbing mind of the young. 
 
 (3) A sound financial policy is relig- 
 iously necessary in the country church. It 
 [21] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 is a part of piety for men to give. We are 
 not ashamed that our civilization has much 
 to do with money. Freedom has used 
 finance in the fight against tyranny, and the 
 Protestant doctrine of personal salvation 
 takes form in the Protestant practise of 
 owning personal property. We are not 
 ashamed of our thrift, of our savings, and 
 of our ownership. These must be conse- 
 crated in a deliberate, systematic doctrine 
 arid scheme of finance in the local church. 
 
 Farmers are beginning to prosper. The 
 days of poverty are nearly over. Founda- 
 tions are being laid for a thrifty and re- 
 warding agriculture. The church must 
 lead those who face economic revival, in 
 consecrating the new prosperity unto the 
 Lord. The Bible is full of this doctrine of 
 giving the "first fruits" and of "laying by" 
 upon the first day of the week. The coun- 
 try church, which has been an inexpensive 
 institution with no budget, the object of 
 
 [22] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 little care or attention, must be sanctified 
 and redeemed to a divine use by a better 
 system of finance. In all the leading 
 churches, with substantial unanimity as to 
 method, financial campaigns are proposed. 
 It is our place here only to insist that regu- 
 lar and appropriate payment unto the Lord 
 is essential to rural religion. 
 
 Great advance is made in these days in 
 the adoption of the Budget System by 
 country churches. Notable gains are re- 
 ported from Canadian churches. The 
 farmers are beginning to consecrate the 
 prosperity w^hich is coming to them to the 
 Lord. The close relation which may not 
 exist between economic prosperity and 
 spirituality does maintain itself between 
 economic prosperity and church growth. 
 When good people do well their churches 
 thrive: and as the church has much to do 
 with prosperity we may expect that higher 
 levels of personal religion will be attained 
 [23] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 through the consecration of economic ad- 
 vance in the country church. 
 
 (4) The country church should have 
 a part in moral reform. American country 
 churches have transformed the temperance 
 movement, which once was purely a per- 
 sonal appeal to "sign the pledge," into a 
 war upon organized vice which makes its 
 home in the saloon. The country church 
 in this demonstrated its social power. It 
 showed itself to be an organization serving 
 society. The temperance movement has 
 been a gallant crusade for the rescue of the 
 community from the grip of the saloon. 
 
 There are other reforms to which the 
 country church should give its attention. 
 None is beneath the notice of the church 
 if it concerns the whole of the community 
 or of the commonwealth. Nothing is alien 
 to Christianity which has to do with hu- 
 manity. If God wants a thing done, the 
 church ought to lead in doing it. For this 
 [24] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 reason the church has taken a great part 
 in the country life movement, which is a 
 social enterprise for the rescue of the coun- 
 try community from decadence. 
 
 (5) The church in the country should 
 remember its allies and keep close to them 
 in mutual service. These are the common 
 schools, the Grange, neighborhood and 
 community associations, and all societies or 
 movements for betterment or for charity, 
 justice, good citizenship, or other good 
 cause. He that doeth righteousness is of 
 God, and all societies for well-doing are the 
 church's kin. They should often visit the 
 meeting-house. The church should al- 
 ways be loyal to them, should never ostra- 
 cize them, and at least once a year should 
 appear with each of them in public. 
 
 (6) The country church should be a 
 community center. There is no other in- 
 stitution universal among farmers and 
 freely supported. The church differs from 
 
 [25] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 the. school, which has the support of gov- 
 ernment, in that grown up people use it 
 seriously. The grown-up interests of the 
 community, therefore, ought to have a 
 place in the church. Nothing of a univer- 
 sal character is unworthy. To be a lead- 
 ing church means to be "servant of all," 
 and this universal .usefulness lays a great 
 duty on the church. It is then the one 
 institution in which the community has 
 a home. And where else, unless it be in the 
 schoolhouse, should it be at home? This 
 universal service is the solution of the prob- 
 lem of church comity or federation. The 
 one way to unite the whole community in 
 religious matters is to serve needs common 
 to all. Some of these needs will appear 
 in the features of the program which are 
 to follow. 
 
 (7) The church in the country should 
 provide, or at least endorse, a community 
 policy of recreation. Nobody else in the 
 [26] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 country is doing so, except, in some places, 
 the country school, which has a similar 
 duty. Recreation, or organized play, is a 
 necessity in a working community. It is 
 as necessary that a working community 
 play together as it is that a workingman 
 shall sweat. We must respect the spirit of 
 play just as much as we respect perspira- 
 tion. It is as unhealthy to be without one 
 as it is to be without the other. Many 
 country churches have undertaken delib- 
 erately to direct and to provide the recrea- 
 tions needed in the community. What a 
 noble word recreation is! It indicates in 
 its very syllables that we are taking part in 
 the work of God. We are refreshing and 
 renewing the tired body and mind. Fur- 
 thermore, recreation has a moral power. 
 Play is only bad when it is opposed by 
 good people. It is on the playground that 
 children learn welcome lessons in telling 
 the truth, in honorable treatment of one an- 
 [27] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 other, in obeying one another, and in self- 
 sacrifice for a common end. The country 
 needs leaders and it is in play that we first 
 discover leaders. Therefore, because play 
 trains the conscience and organized play 
 trains the citizen and disciplines the young 
 soldier, the church should see that needful 
 facilities for play are provided in the com- 
 munity. It may be that the school will take 
 charge of the playground. It may be that 
 some public-spirited citizens will see that 
 the young people are cared for, but the 
 church should be custodian of the problem 
 of recreation, because play has so much 
 to do with right and wrong. The school 
 is the home of the intellect, but the church 
 is the home of the tonscience. Therefore, 
 recreation is the business of the church. 
 
 Some communities have done their duty 
 
 by celebrating the holidays of the year as 
 
 great play days. We have not nearly so 
 
 many holidays as the Hebrews, and those 
 
 [28] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 who object to holidays because they take 
 people from work must have forgotten that 
 God Almighty made the Jews a rich and 
 industrious and devout nation through a 
 training in which feasts, holidays, outdoor 
 picnics, living in booths, and going on ex- 
 cursions occupied a great place every year. 
 The solemn, historical events of the year 
 are celebrated by the Jews in festivals of 
 joy. All these feasts bring the whole peo- 
 ple together. Families are reunited, rela- 
 tives exchange visits and presents, and the 
 cares of business are laid aside. If we are 
 going to make the Americans a great peo- 
 ple, we will have to use many holidays as 
 a method in the process, and the harder we 
 work the more holidays we need. 
 
 Dramatic entertainments occupy an in- 
 creasing place in the country. The church 
 may well take charge of these herself, as 
 for many centuries in the simple life of 
 medieval Europe the churches did. The 
 [29] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 Christmas play is a good way of showing 
 the Christmas spirit for the whole com- 
 munity. It freshens up the gospel story 
 and puts it in modern dress. Everybody 
 comes to such a play ; Roman Catholic and 
 Protestant, rich and poor. Usually dra- 
 matic entertainments are easier to provide 
 than musical entertainments, and they are 
 more popular. More people can under- 
 stand them and take part in them. 
 
 (8) The country church should be a 
 learner in the new science of agriculture. 
 When God was making a people he taught 
 them to possess a land. The Hebrews were 
 made a holy nation in part by the agricul- 
 tural teaching of Deuteronomy. Scientific 
 agriculture is a modern commentary on 
 Deuteronomy. It is the knowledge and the 
 imperative given by Gpd Almighty for the 
 possession of the soil by those who work 
 it. The church has no need as a rule to 
 teach agriculture, nor does the American 
 C30] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 church need to set up a school of soils and 
 silos and animal husbandry, for this teach- 
 ing is provided by the universities and by 
 the government. But the church should 
 provide the spirit in which this knowledge 
 shall be used. 
 
 For that reason the minister and the peo- 
 ple must be students of agriculture. The 
 same zeal which the ministers have put in 
 the past into the study of "the promised 
 land" in Palestine should be put upon the 
 study of the promised land in America ; for 
 the American farmer is taking possession 
 of his promised land just as the Hebrews 
 were doing in the time of Joshua and of 
 Samuel, and he has as hard a fight against 
 modern Philistines as they had. When 
 country people are praying for the posses- 
 sion of land they need a church to help 
 them. 
 
 Therefore it is often a good thing to hold 
 a farmers' institute in a church. It is a 
 [31] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 far better thing for minister and people to 
 indicate clearly the duty that man owes to 
 the soil, and the responsibility of those who 
 till the soil to the whole people. The main 
 purpose in all of this should be that the 
 people of the country church shall be good 
 farmers. Indeed, if the church is to sur- 
 vive in the country, it must be true in the 
 future as in the past, that th& members of 
 the church of Christ are the best farmers 
 in the community. This is necessary, be- 
 cause the land in the country is passing into 
 the hands of better farmers and out of the 
 possession of poorer farmers. 
 
 (9) The country church must maintain 
 its alliance with the country school. Prot- 
 estants have as a rule no parochial schools, 
 and that fact shows, not that they disbe- 
 lieve, but that they believe in the school. 
 Christianity is dependent on education. It 
 is an expression of intelligence applied to 
 the problem of religion. The religion of 
 [32] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 Jesus Christ differs from other religions in 
 knowledge and in sound convictions. This 
 is why Christ's advent could occur only 
 "when the fulness of the time came." 
 
 The Protestant churches, which do not 
 have parochial schools, are deliberately 
 committed to the public school. They must 
 not, therefore, abandon the public school 
 and forget their dependence upon it. If 
 they do and if the public school is aban- 
 doned by good people, the churches will 
 perish, for in the end Protestantism and 
 Christianity are dependent for their form 
 and their maintenance upon trained intelli- 
 gence. Protestant congregations are de- 
 pendent for their continuance upon ade- 
 quate public schools. 
 
 But we cannot directly control the pub- 
 lic school as the Roman Catholic priest con- 
 trols the parochial school. All the more 
 spiritual must be our alliance with it. The 
 church must train its people in those ideas 
 [33] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 of education which will result in good com- 
 mon schools. The minister must be alive 
 and alert to the modern development of ed- 
 ucation. His contribution to the commun- 
 ity by indirect means and the obedience of 
 his people to the higher principles of educa- 
 tion as these are tried and proved have an 
 essential place in the program of the rural 
 church. 
 
 (lo) The rural church must direct its 
 work to the winning of the marginal mem- 
 bers of the community. This is essential 
 to a social ministry. In order to reach the 
 whole community those who are in jeop- 
 ardy, or whose permanence in the commun- 
 ity is in question, must be won. It is not 
 so necessary for the church to seek the rich, 
 or the devout, or the morally strong. Let 
 them give of their gifts and contribute of 
 their resources to the church. But the poli- 
 cies of the church in the country must be 
 framed with the intention of reaching the 
 [34] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 tenant farmer, the laborer, and the young 
 people of the community; and with them 
 any others who in a particular community 
 are struggling, or discouraged, or likely to 
 give up. 
 
 (ii) Curiously, the most important 
 thing of all is that the country church 
 should take its own denomination seri- 
 ously. There is a slovenly and indolent way 
 of looking upon the rural congregation as 
 if it did not matter whether it cooperated 
 with the organized life of its denomination 
 or not. But the country church is a part 
 of a great religious society. If it is a 
 Methodist church, it should be organized 
 under the authority of the Bishop, the 
 Superintendent, and the Boards of the 
 church. Its policies should be obedient to 
 the great purposes of the denomination. If 
 it is Presbyterian, it can only be injured — 
 it cannot at all be helped — by permitting 
 it to be independent of Presbytery. If it 
 [35] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 is Baptist, it ought to affiliate itself in 
 hearty cooperation with the organized ac- 
 tivities of the Baptist denomination. Each 
 church must work in harmony with the 
 methods of the organization on which it 
 depends for its living. Mongrel churches 
 which show a mixture of several denomina- 
 tions in their ways of work belong to no 
 order of religion and are weaker than any. 
 In a wide study of country churches it has 
 been found that in the greatest number of 
 instances the churches which are well or- 
 ganized, according to the manner and form 
 of their denomination and according to the 
 general plans and proposals of Christian 
 men in our time, prove to be the best 
 churches. 
 
 (12) For a particular population the 
 church's program will be specially adapted. 
 As an illustration we add a program of 
 church work which is being used in a cer- 
 tain group of churches. 
 [36] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 A PROGRAM FOR RURAL CHURCHES 
 
 Looking toward a Forward Movement in 
 
 These Churches During the Coming 
 
 Year along the Following Lines : 
 
 I. THE FEEDING OF THE FLOCK, or the 
 building up of the members of the church in the 
 knowledge of the Word of God and strengthening 
 tliem in the Christian life. 
 
 The Means to be Employed 
 
 I. Preaching 
 
 The preaching services in many rural churches 
 are few and far between, once or twice a month. 
 The most possible, therefore, should be made of 
 these services by working out carefully, beforehand, 
 each order of service, so that the congregation may 
 proceed in a worshipful manner. The effectiveness 
 of many a good sermon is spoiled by a bungling 
 opening and closing exercise, beginning late and 
 dragging through the service in a loose slipshod 
 way. 
 
 Care should be used in selecting appropriate 
 hymns, one of which at least should carry the 
 theme of the sermon. Let the organist and choir 
 have the hymns early in the week preceding the 
 preaching services. 
 
 It is a decided advantage to have the congrega- 
 tion stand during the singing of the hymns. This 
 
 [37] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 rests the people and helps to put them in better tune 
 for listening to the sermon. 
 
 2, Pastoral Visitation 
 
 Let every home be visited at least twice a year, 
 and oftener if possible, giving special attention to 
 the sick. 
 
 No pastor should have favorite families to whose 
 homes he runs often. 
 
 Let the pastor's calls be purposeful and not too 
 long. 
 
 Aim to see and have a word with every member 
 of the family before leaving the home even though 
 it involves a trip to the field for a word of greeting 
 with the boy behind the plow. 
 
 The pastor's visitation may be supplemented by 
 the assistance of a well-selected visiting committee 
 of men and women, including the officers. 
 
 3. The Sunday School 
 
 For greater efficiency and thoroughness the fol- 
 lowing things are recommended: 
 
 (i) Occasional teachers' meetings with the 
 church officers for conference and prayer. 
 
 (2) The organization of a Cradle Roll and 
 Home Department. 
 
 (3) The organization of the young people's 
 classes for definite social service, one for the young 
 men and one for the young women, where no other 
 young people's organizations exist. 
 
 (4) The observance of at least the following 
 
 [38] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 special days : Children's Day, Thanksgiving, Christ- 
 mas, Easter, and Rally Day, taking the customary 
 offerings on these occasions as recommended by the 
 Church Boards. 
 
 (S) Have a series of ten-minute talks on the 
 purpose of each of the several boards. 
 
 4. The Bible in the Home 
 
 Seek to install the practise of daily Bible read- 
 ing by the family together in the homes, using the 
 selections of Scripture given in the Sunday School 
 Quarterlies for daily reading. 
 
 5. Prayer 
 
 Where a regular mid-week prayer-meeting at 
 the church is not practicable, cottage prayer-meet- 
 ings are recommended. 
 
 It is an excellent plan, occasionally, to precede 
 the sermon with an informal prayer and praise serv- 
 ice instead of using the regular formal opening 
 service. 
 
 6. Woman's Missionary Society 
 
 A society should be organized in communities 
 where none exists, for the study of missions, for 
 fellowship, and for service. It may be combined 
 with the Aid Society. 
 
 7. Religious Literature in the Home 
 
 (i) A religious weekly and missionary maga- 
 zine. Earnest effort should be put forth to place 
 a religious weekly and missionary magazine in every 
 home. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 (2) The leaflets from the various Boards. 
 
 8. A Christian Training Class 
 
 Pastors and officers are urged to begin Christian 
 classes for the children between the ages of eight 
 and fourteen years. Saturday afternoons through 
 the summer season is a good time for the class to 
 meet. 
 
 9. An Every Member Canvass 
 
 using the individual pledge; the doubk budget 
 recommended. Annual church rally to follow this 
 campaign. 
 
 II. EVANGELIZATION 
 The Means to be Employed 
 
 I. Preaching 
 
 (i) Part of the regular preaching services 
 should be evangelistic in their nature and an invi- 
 tation given. Have a special revival campaign for 
 a number of weeks preceding Thanksgiving Day, 
 or Easter, possibly from the first of January and 
 culminating on Easter Sunday, in which all the 
 regular preaching services are evangelistic. Dur- 
 ing this period encourage the members of the church 
 to do personal work and to invite those not in the 
 habit of church attendance to come to the meetings, 
 and also to visit people in their homes. 
 
 (2) Occasional evangelistic meetings in the 
 schoolhouses on Sunday afternoons in the winter 
 
 [40] 
 
COUNTRY CHURCH PROGRAM 
 
 season or in a grove in the summer-time in which 
 laymen and the young people participate largely. 
 
 (3) Special revival meetings by an evangelist 
 if thought best. 
 
 2. Mission study in connection with the Sunday- 
 school, the young people's organizations, and the 
 woman's missionary society. 
 
 3. Oflfering for missionary work. (Not in addi- 
 tion to the regular offerings for benevolences and 
 the special offerings taken in the Sunday-school on 
 special days.) 
 
 4. Pastoral Visitation, and Personal 
 Work by Church Officers and Teachers. 
 
 III. SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY 
 THROUGH CHURCH FORCES 
 
 See that at least one popular meeting is held in 
 the community during the year in the interests of 
 the &v6 following causes, providing the initiative 
 is not taken by any other agency than the church 
 to do this work. In that case the church is to 
 cooperate : 
 
 1. Education of the Young through the 
 
 Public Schools. 
 
 2. Better Farming (Rural life institute). 
 
 3. Good Roads. 
 
 Have a good-roads day when everybody turns 
 out to do some practical work on a given piece of 
 road, the different crews meeting at a central place 
 
 [41] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 at the noon hour for dinner with a good-roads 
 speech by some competent person, if possible. Suit- 
 able literature in the shape of bulletins, tracts, and 
 other literature should be distributed from time to 
 time on these subjects. 
 
 4. Recreation. See that there is sufficient whole- 
 
 some entertainment and recreation provided 
 in the community for old and young. 
 
 5. Music. Do something special during the year 
 
 toward developing the musical talent of the 
 community. 
 It is urged that a record be kept of all efforts 
 put forth, with the results obtained at certain dates. 
 
 [42] 
 
IV 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOCIALIZED 
 RURAL CHURCH WORK 
 
 TO illustrate the principle of organ- 
 ized Christian work, examples of 
 churches that have made good in the coun- 
 try are given here. No attempt is made 
 to praise or promote these churches; they 
 are named as sign-posts to guide the reader 
 in the way of community service in the 
 country. 
 
 A successful church in the country wears 
 no label of being rural. It does not adver- 
 tise farming. It is just a church in a high 
 state of efficiency. For while every church, 
 urban, rural, or foreign, reflects the social 
 environment with the utmost precision, its 
 own message is in all lands and places the 
 [43] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 same. The greater its efficiency, the more 
 perfectly does it exhibit the signs of a gospel 
 institution, a religious association, a society 
 of spiritual-minded people. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that no at- 
 tempt is made here to enumerate the suc- 
 cessful churches or to give any estimate of 
 the proportion of country churches that il- 
 lustrate the theme. None is mentioned, 
 however, whose minister or people are not 
 in a position to advise others as to the suc- 
 cess and value of community service in 
 their experience. 
 
 The extremes of community service are 
 evangelism, on the one hand, and economic 
 teaching, on the other. Very few country 
 churches render community service by mere 
 evangelism. Neither do many country 
 ministers serve the community as teachers 
 of agriculture, although it is perfectly ob- 
 vious that the evangelistic spirit and the 
 sympathetic relation of the minister to the 
 [44] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 farmer in his economic struggle are essen- 
 tial to community service. 
 
 An example of evangelistic rural church 
 w^ork is the Methodist Episcopal Church 
 at Alexandria, Licking County, Ohio, 
 which has made it a business to "discover, 
 win, and find a place for every natural 
 leader." The work of this church is per- 
 sonal work. In one revival campaign 158 
 members were added to the church. The 
 Brotherhood of the church has "the glad 
 hand" as a motto. The Rev. Karl B. Alex- 
 ander is the minister. 
 
 An instance of agricultural leadership, 
 among the few in which ministers have 
 taught their people how to farm, is that of 
 a church in Saint Anthony, Du Bois 
 County, Indiana. The rector undertook, 
 with the advice of an agricultural professor 
 in a state university, to transform the 
 agricultural methods of his people. Six 
 years of diligent study and constant experi- 
 [45] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 mentation and discussion resulted in a re- 
 vision of the methods of tilling the soil; a 
 transformation of the farm economy from 
 dependence upon grain to a dependence 
 upon fruit culture. 
 
 Ministers generally agree with econo- 
 mists like Prof. Thomas Nixon Carver, 
 in holding that the service of the church in 
 the country should be social rather than 
 economic. While the two cannot be kept 
 strictly apart, the church is generally held 
 to be a social, not an economic, institution. 
 It has to do with the people, rather than 
 the property, in the country. The Meth- 
 odist and Presbyterian churches in Bellona, 
 New York, have recognized this in their 
 union to form a farmers' club. The original 
 members of this club were the ministers 
 and church officers of the two congrega- 
 tions named, which divide the field between 
 them. Women as well as men have been 
 admitted to the club, and from the first its 
 [46] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 discussions have taken a high plane of in- 
 terest. Cornell University professors have 
 been among the most frequent speakers to 
 address the club. Their topics have been 
 as a rule economic and the studies made by 
 the club have to do with the preservation 
 of the soil, the marketing of farm products, 
 as well as with the social problems of the 
 family, the school, the church, and general 
 questions of patriotism and mental culture. 
 This club has been of great spiritual in- 
 fluence. By means of it the two churches 
 have each had access to the central, social 
 life of the community. All the people of 
 the countryside have become through this 
 club potentially members of each church 
 and both pastors have had full access to the 
 whole population. The Rev. T. Maxwell 
 Morrison, Bellona, New York, is the pastor 
 longest in service who knows about this 
 work. 
 The Harmony Methodist Protestant 
 [47] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 Church, in Ravenwood, Missouri, called 
 as its pastor about five years ago a young 
 minister, the Rev. C. R. Green. He under- 
 took to live with his people in the country, 
 eight miles and a half from town. They 
 paid at that time an insufficient salary. One 
 result of his ministry has been an ample 
 and satisfactory support for the minister 
 and a house for him to live in. The church 
 recently had 207 members. The work has 
 proceeded along lines of social develop- 
 ment. Whatever the community needed 
 as a relaxation from labor, as a diversion 
 in the loneliness and isolation of farm work, 
 as a means of emotional and esthetic culture 
 to compensate for the tedium and common- 
 place in life, this church has seen fit to 
 supply. The social life of the young people 
 has been a large factor in Mr. Green's 
 work. His own labor as a pastor and his 
 residence among his people have been large 
 contributions to the warmth and sym- 
 [48] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 pathy and social growth of the countryside. 
 Many organizations have been created to 
 satisfy the needs of the people. Among 
 other things a brass band of twenty-six 
 pieces is maintained in this rural congrega- 
 tion. A crowning tribute to the social and 
 intellectual capacity and to the fine culture 
 of this congregation was given last summer, 
 when the leading men who support the 
 Chautauqua Assembly in Ravenwood asked 
 the Harmony Church to take tWo days in 
 the Chautauqua and to provide the pro- 
 gram. The congregation accepted service 
 for one whole day, came into town in a 
 body and provided music, speakers, and 
 other talent for the full day's program. On 
 account of the long drive it was not thought 
 best to take the second day, but the adven- 
 ture gave heart and happiness to the rural 
 church and taught them how far they had 
 already gone in the development of com- 
 munity life. 
 
 [49] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 Instances of the relation of the country 
 church to the country school are many. 
 Churches near Petersburg, Illinois, are 
 mefttioned, not because they alone illus- 
 trate this relation, but because they have 
 done something distinctive. The Rev. H. 
 O. Tribbe, pastor of the Free Baptist 
 Church in the country near Petersburg, is 
 teacher at the same time of the common 
 schools. His work as minister does not in- 
 terfere with his school-teaching, nor is his 
 experience as a teacher ignored in his work 
 as pastor. In the Sunday-school of his 
 church graded lessons are used and children 
 are graded according to their attainments 
 in the common school grades, so that the 
 children meet on the Sabbath day and study 
 with their week-day companions. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church at Rock Creek, 
 
 Illinois, occupies a peculiar relation to the 
 
 public school. Formally it has no relation 
 
 to it, for of course church and school are 
 
 [SO] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 separate in all American communities. But 
 in the parish of this church there is no 
 other congregation, so that the people in 
 several school districts are Presbyterians. 
 A definite influence, therefore, has been 
 exerted upon the schools by the men of one 
 congregation. Several years ago these lead- 
 ing men felt the force of the exodus from 
 the country. They consulted as to methods 
 for arresting this movement to the city and 
 the town. The chief reason of their interest 
 was the impoverishment of church and 
 family life by the departure of prosperous 
 and desirable neighbors. Attempts were 
 made to select a desirable class of renters 
 who should settle on the land. Ultimately 
 this discussion narrowed down to the im- 
 provement of the public schools. Three 
 districts were consolidated and the result 
 has been most happy. The exodus from 
 the countryside has been arrested, owners 
 and tenants who come into the neighbor- 
 [51] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 hood do so by preference and at some ex- 
 pense to themselves, because land is of 
 higher value and rents for more money as 
 a result of the improved schools. This ex- 
 perience of the Rock Creek church has 
 been a typical illustration of the close rela- 
 tion between church and school, for these 
 substantial farmers, descendants of the 
 earliest settlers, realized keenly the neces- 
 sity of good schools if their church was to 
 be maintained in the countryside arid if 
 other churches were to be excluded from 
 the parish bounds in which their church 
 had been so long a community center. Now 
 church and manse and consolidated school 
 stand side by side in the open country. 
 
 Music is so religious a thing that it 
 should have a place by itself. No other 
 form of culture is absolutely necessary if 
 the people be trained in church to sing. 
 Gomer Congregational Church, in Allen 
 County, Ohio, has for years, under the 
 [52] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 leadership of Mr. George W. Williams, 
 cultivated the best music. A choir of be- 
 tween fifty and a hundred voices can be 
 assembled, and regularly throughout the 
 year music is rendered of a quality rarely 
 heard in the country. People travel in the 
 summer months from near-by cities to hear 
 and enjoy the singing at Gomer Church. 
 This instance of esthetic culture as a form 
 of social service illustrates what the church 
 must do to make life worth while to people ; 
 to keep them from the discouragement and 
 revulsion which come of commonplace ex- 
 periences and material labor. Life must 
 be given grace and the Sundays, as well as 
 the evenings and mornings of the day, must 
 be filled in some manner with beauty. 
 Idealism must be had if men are to live 
 and to live together. For this reason the 
 churches which have cultivated music in 
 an exceptional degree are illustrious under 
 the head of community service, 
 [53] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 A fine example of the centering of a 
 spiritual life for a whole community in a 
 church is seen in the Disciple Church at 
 Hiram, Portage County, Ohio. So well- 
 rounded is the work of this church that one 
 cannot state its service in a single proposi- 
 tion. Hiram College and community pur- 
 sue their labors together throughout the 
 week and worship together in the Disciple 
 Church on the Lord's day. Every interest 
 of the community meets here. All the life- 
 blood of the college and of the town flows 
 in and out of the auricle and ventricle in 
 this beating heart. An excellent building 
 and a large membership, a minister, the 
 Rev. John E. Pounds, awake to every intel- 
 ligence of the learned and every need of 
 the most humble, make eminent a church 
 too well organized to be classified save that 
 it is the center of the community. 
 
 The Sunday-school should by every line 
 of probability be the working center of the 
 [54] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 church, especially in the country. In the 
 United Brethren Church of Old Fort, 
 Seneca County, Ohio, this is true. The 
 Sunday-school is large enough, with a 
 membership of 231, to be a power, but its 
 •strength is not in mere numbers. It is ex- 
 cellently organized and its work centers in 
 a course for teacher-training. Thirty-seven 
 members of the school have graduated from 
 the standard course. Last year there were 
 eleven members in the third-year class of 
 the advanced teachers' training course about 
 to complete their studies. On the last 
 Decision Day twenty-three members of the 
 Sunday-school joined the church. The 
 adult Bible class is a dynamic for evangel- 
 ism. Mr. C. C. Drown, a business man of 
 Old Fort, has charge of the teacher-training 
 class and to him much credit is due for the 
 organization of this efficient school at the 
 heart of a serviceable church. 
 
 In selecting an illustrious instance of 
 [55] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 financial ministry the place of the United 
 Presbyterian Church is significant. In 
 Cedarville, Green County, Ohio, is a church 
 of this denomination which has an eminent 
 financial system. The church publishes a 
 directory and financial statement each year, 
 in which are given the names of the mem- 
 bers and the amount contributed toward 
 salary and incidentals, with the amount also 
 opposite each name contributed by that 
 member toward missions and benevolences. 
 Contributions no larger than five cents from 
 children are fully itemized. The result is 
 that of the total receipts in the last year 
 reported of $6,500, only $2,050 went to the 
 congregational expenses, and toward mis- 
 sionary interests $2,859 were contributed. 
 The Mission Boards received from this 
 church $10.25 per member. In the same 
 year an amount equal to $1,400 was con- 
 tributed for decoration and improvement 
 of the church property, yet without special 
 [56] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 subscription for these extra expenses. The 
 pastor, the Rev. James S. M. McMichael, 
 is sympathetic with the life of the young 
 people and has served as coach on college 
 and high-school teams. Cedarville is a 
 village with three churches in a population 
 of one thousand. 
 
 A brilliant example of the rounded suc- 
 cess in a country church which comes to a 
 minister and a people as a result of taking 
 all phases of life into the circle of religion, 
 is found in Buckhorn, Kentucky. In a little 
 more than ten years the Rev. Harvey S. 
 Murdock has built up a community church 
 under conditions in which most men fail. 
 His results in evangelism are in excess of 
 those in any church of the same denomina- 
 tion in Kentucky. Indeed there are few in 
 the country which have proportionately in- 
 creased so much. But the "two arms of 
 evangel in Buckhorn are baseball and 
 the fight against illicit whisky." Buckhorn 
 [57] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 is in the mountains of Kentucky, not far 
 from the famous Breathitt County in which 
 feuds and law-breaking seem perennial. 
 But at Buckhorn the whole of life is 
 brought under the influence of religion. 
 People are taught to farm. The very corn 
 and the hogs are taught to improve. The 
 young people are encouraged to play. 
 Public games entice the young men away 
 from evil influences. A college with an 
 enrolment in hundreds stands side by side 
 with the church. All the needs of the 
 countryside are met, and so far as possible 
 satisfied, in a wholesome community life. 
 Because the needs are acute and even tragic 
 in Buckhorn the church has wrought a great 
 success, which should be the greater, rather 
 than the less, in communities where the 
 same needs are in a commonplace, rather 
 than in a tragic, form. 
 
 In the great Middle West, "the granary 
 of the world," along with the improvement 
 [58] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 of farming to meet the needs of a greater 
 population, where scientific agriculture is 
 getting its fullest use and cooperative action 
 of farmers is becoming general, distin- 
 guished country churches are found in 
 numbers. If the church may keep pace 
 with the development of better farming her 
 future is assured. Without the parallel de- 
 velopment of the church the improved 
 farming, because it is more profitable to a 
 few, will result in a commercial spirit and 
 a dispersed farm population. 
 
 In DeKalb County, Illinois, is the Suy- 
 dam Methodist Episcopal Church, to 
 which the Rev. Willis Ray Wilson came 
 as pastor four years ago. This church is 
 nearly six miles from the pastor's residence 
 in Leland, and in it his rural congregation 
 has a service of worship and preaching 
 every Sunday, and, as it is the only church 
 in Victor township, it has in its congrega- 
 tion the representatives of five denomina- 
 [59] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 tions. The new minister began his work 
 with a Sunday-school contest, the results of 
 which amazed the countryside. At a final 
 service the meeting-house was packed and 
 there was a congregation of equal size out- 
 of-doors, so that the pulpit was moved to 
 the front porch for the occasion. An ag- 
 gressive evangelistic campaign followed, 
 and promptly, in the order which country 
 ministers love, the church began to enlarge 
 her interests. Corn contests, with prizes, 
 were held and a baking contest for the 
 ladies. A farmers' institute, with speakers 
 seldom heard in such meetings, followed, 
 and during the winter months entertain- 
 ments, home talent plays, discussions of 
 woman's suffrage, of consolidated schools 
 and other humane problems, with lectures. 
 Holiday entertainments filled the season of 
 rural leisure. A country problem class 
 studied during the winter the rural situa- 
 tion, both local and national. In the sum- 
 [60] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 mer a great community picnic is held for 
 all, with a "field day" ; the men visiting in 
 a body different fields for the comparative 
 study of fertilizers in use. The women are 
 organized as well as the men and the chil- 
 dren. The pastor has a ready-made point 
 of contact device by which he commends 
 himself to the hired men, in the form of a 
 husking-peg, which he carries in his pocket. 
 Throughout the fall months he frequently 
 uses it as a calling-card upon the tenant or 
 hired man new to the community. 
 
 It is no wonder that the minister of this 
 church declines to leave, for he realizes that 
 the country church, when dignified with 
 the whole-hearted service of a whole man 
 and inspired with the spirit of the Master, 
 is a great success and a more satisfying field 
 of work than is the town or city. The secret 
 of Mr. Wilson's success at Leland and at 
 Suydam churches is systematic and sym- 
 pathetic service among his people. 
 [6i] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 An equally interesting church in the 
 country is at Osceola, in Stark County, 
 Illinois. Here the pastor of the Baptist 
 church has given six years to the service of 
 a people of whom only eighty live in the vil- 
 lage. His satisfaction has cdme in the re- 
 ward of his belief that the "rural commun- 
 ity must be the one big place in which he 
 may serve Jesus Christ." He believes his 
 people "worthy of his best effort, and the 
 question is not 'Is this job big enough for 
 me?' but *Am I big enough for this job?' " 
 The magnifying of the country church by 
 the pastor at Osceola, whose name is Bart- 
 lett Eugene Allen, takes the form of de- 
 veloping not merely personal character, 
 which indeed is the main business of the 
 church, but also the social environment, 
 and the centering of all social activity in 
 the church. His ministry has been bold to 
 appreciate, not merely the psychology, but 
 the sociology, of the place. In other 
 [62] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 words, the greatness of the country church 
 in his eyes is the statesmanship growing 
 out of personal service. Careful plans are 
 made for social activities. The church 
 enters heartily into every community 
 gathering. There is a Fourth of July 
 parade and plenty of fun, with a basket 
 dinner, visiting, sports, and a baseball 
 game. In an article on "Community Build- 
 ing" the minister says, "This one thing I 
 would make plain, that I do not mean to 
 say that the church must run everything 
 in the social line, but it must so radiate the 
 spirit of Christianity that all the social 
 functions and the very life of the com- 
 munity will have a healthy moral tone." 
 Mr. Alien believes in making the church 
 big enough for the man. "The Illinois 
 farmer does big things in a business way, 
 and if the church is to reach him and to 
 convert him to a better community life, 
 it must be big enough to have a place in 
 [63] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 his time and to appeal to his sense of 
 strength." He believes in recognizing the 
 rural intelligence and appealing to the 
 brain and the energy of the Middle West 
 farmer. Mr. Allen's views among those 
 of ministers are the same as Prof. Carver's 
 economic interpretation of the farmer. 
 These men agree that the American farmer 
 likes big machinery, large plans, adventur- 
 ous purposes, and that to convert him to a 
 community service he must be harnessed to 
 great enterprises. Mr. Allen says, "I know 
 of no place where the results of real active 
 work for the Master are so sure and certain 
 as out in the country ministering to those 
 who live in the open, who toil and sow, 
 breathing God's pure air and depending on 
 nature to reward them with a bountiful 
 harvest. They naturally live nearest to 
 God, consequently respond most readily to 
 his appeals." 
 At Fowler, Kansas, there is a Christian 
 [64] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 church with a membership of one hundred 
 and eighty in a population of less than 
 seven hundred people, having three other 
 Protestant churches. The development of 
 this church has been due to the zeal and 
 intelligent effort of Mrs. Mason and of the 
 pastor, the Rev. John W. Jones. Its prog- 
 ress has resulted from plans they made in 
 order to satisfy the obvious need of a relig- 
 ious and social center. Two lines of de- 
 velopment are found in this church. The 
 Sunday-school is well organized. Each 
 class is an independent society, with officers 
 and committees, and good-natured rivalry 
 prevails throughout the Sunday-school. 
 Prizes are offered and the sporting spirit is 
 not despised, for the contests between classes 
 sometimes are terminated in a banquet pro- 
 vided by the losers. The school does not 
 despise genial methods which some think 
 beneath the dignity of religious people. . 
 The other characteristic of this church 
 [65] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 is a cordial and sympathetic social spirit. 
 The church offers opportunity for good 
 times in music, entertainments, and social 
 meetings, which have many occasions 
 throughout the year. There is an organized 
 choir meeting every Tuesday evening, on 
 occasion furnishing special 'music. There 
 is even a junior choir and of the little boys 
 a quartet. Apparently this church believes 
 in organization and an office for every one 
 in which he may serve the community 
 through some assigned part in the common 
 purposes of the church. 
 
 Another church in the "corn belt" is the 
 Presbyterian, at Edgington, Illinois. The 
 minister, the Rev. A. G. Stewart, has been 
 influential in forming the Edgington Rural 
 Progressive Club, which held a two-days' 
 farmers' institute during the worst blizzard 
 of February, 1914, with an average attend- 
 ance of forty-five persons. Every speaker 
 was a specialist. Such problems were dis- 
 [66] 
 
SOCIALIZED RURAL WORK 
 
 cussed as consolidated schools, community 
 social life, newspaper publicity, and the 
 opportunities for girls at the state univer- 
 sity. Good roads were so thoroughly dis- 
 cussed that a resolution was passed for 
 bonding the country to secure funds for 
 good country roads. The relation of these 
 economic and social improvements to relig- 
 ion is more evident in the country than 
 elsewhere. Farmers do not need to have 
 explained to them why the evangelist who 
 preaches about heaven on Sunday shall pre- 
 side at a meeting for good roads on Mon- 
 day. "The kingdom of God has come near 
 unto you" in the country, more near than 
 in the cities where life is divided and relig- 
 ion is alien to many material interests. 
 Generally throughout the United States 
 the churches which are succeeding in the 
 country and holding their own are marked 
 by broad sympathies, humane leadership, 
 full possession of the gospel message as it 
 [67] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 is taught in the Old and New Testaments, 
 and all these are assured by the residence 
 of a pastor in the country among his people 
 — a man whose heart is open and sympa- 
 thetic to every need of the countryside. 
 
 [68] 
 
SUGGESTIONS FOR RURAL 
 CHURCH BUILDINGS 
 
 IN the day of extension, which in most 
 of the states is at an end so far as the 
 open country is concerned, church build- 
 ings were erected having only one room. 
 The present needs require in the country a 
 church building of a composite and elabo- 
 rate form. It should fit the community, as 
 the community grows, just as a garment fits 
 the growing form of a child. Radical 
 changes in clothing come in the life of a 
 child, and a radical change has come to 
 the country church, requiring a structure 
 for worship suited to the composite and 
 elaborate needs of the community. 
 These needs are many in the service of 
 [69] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 the most conservative type of religion. 
 Their number is increased when one re- 
 gards the church as a community force. In 
 the country there are so few social forces 
 at work in an organized form that the 
 church is charged with more numerous 
 responsibilities even than in the city. It is 
 the only free institution universal among 
 country people. In every region where 
 farmers have settled they have erected 
 churches without the help of government, 
 by their own choice, so that the church is 
 an exponent of the feeling and of the will 
 of country people as no other institution is. 
 It has the most valuable tradition and it 
 inherits the most inspiring conceptions of 
 community life. Lodges do not feel re- 
 sponsible for the whole community. 
 Schools are charged with a service to the 
 children alone. But the church recognizes, 
 toward the whole population, a duty to 
 render the most public and open service. 
 [70] 
 
RURAL CHURCH BUILDINGS 
 
 In all building or erecting of churches 
 it is important that the advice be asked of 
 those who know how to design and to build. 
 Ministers and church officers are seldom 
 trained as architects or as builders, and the 
 church should be a thing of beauty as well 
 as of use. For the sake of both use and 
 beauty the advice of an architect should be 
 secured. 
 
 The rebuilding of the rural house of 
 worship is upon the mind of many congre- 
 gations and their ministers. We present 
 in this chapter the plan of one such church, 
 which combines the elements entering into 
 a great number of reconstructed country 
 churches. It is the Du Page Presbyterian 
 Church at Du Page, Illinois, of which the 
 Rev. Matthew Brown McNutt was pastor. 
 The story of its reconstruction has been told 
 in his pamphlet "Modern Methods in the 
 Country Church." It is published here be- 
 cause the plans could easily be secured. 
 [71] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 Other country churches contain the same 
 elements. This one has a sufficient appeal 
 to the community to illustrate the whole of 
 the problems arising out of country life. 
 
 The Du Page Church is a rebuilt country 
 church. The former building, having but 
 one room, was used in the new structure, 
 its walls being utilized in the construction 
 of the Sunday-school portion of the new 
 building. This building furnishes means 
 of ministry to the whole community in edu- 
 cational, social, musical, and athletic direc- 
 tions, and all these kinds of ministry are 
 coordinated with the central fact of wor- 
 ship, to the uses of which the main part of 
 the new structure is devoted. 
 
 The Du Page Church is best understood 
 by one who comes to it on a wintry day 
 from a long drive in the country. Com- 
 fortable sheds are provided for the farmers' 
 horse or horses; and when he enters the 
 church the farmer himself finds a warm 
 [72] 
 
RURAL CHURCH BUILDINGS 
 
 cloak-room beside the doorway, in which 
 he may leave his heavy outdoor garments. 
 At the end of the service or entertainment 
 he will find them dry and comfortable. 
 During his time in the church building 
 they do not encumber the seat he occupies. 
 A similar cloak-room is furnished for his 
 wife. 
 
 If small children come to the church a 
 room is provided in the farthest corner 
 from the auditorium, in which are rocking- 
 chairs and a comfortable bed always made 
 up for the little children. Here a mother 
 may rock her baby to sleep, and leave the 
 child during the entertainment or the serv- 
 ice of worship. Sometimes six little chil- 
 dren have occupied this room at one time. 
 The walls of this room are tastefully deco- 
 rated with attractive pictures of mothers 
 and children. 
 
 The chief feature of the Du Page Church 
 is the plain and simple auditorium for 
 [73] 
 
BA.SEiVlBNT 
 FLOOR PLANS OP THE DU PAGE CHURCH 
 
 [74] 
 
RURAL CHURCH BUILDINGS 
 
 worship. While not reserved exclusively 
 for public worship, this meeting-place 
 makes a peculiar appeal to the devotional 
 spirit. People who come in even on a week- 
 day are accustomed to sit down quietly as 
 in a cathedral. The wonted use of this room 
 has made its impression upon the whole 
 countryside. In all the experience of the 
 Du Page Church, with entertainments, 
 musical events, Sunday-school, and church 
 services, there has been singularly little 
 cause for complaint. A peculiarly high 
 sense of reverence is associated with the 
 place of worship. 
 
 Opening on the side of the auditorium by 
 sliding doors is a Sunday-school room, 
 which may be made an extension of the 
 church auditorium. At one end of this 
 structure are large classrooms. At the other 
 end, nearest to the road, are the mothers' 
 room and a cloak room. 
 
 On either side of the pulpit recess is a 
 [75] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 small room; one for the choir and one for 
 the minister. Du Page Church has made 
 a great deal of musical culture. Partly be- 
 cause of the gifts and training of the former 
 minister and his wife and partly because 
 of the capacities of their people, a large 
 place has been occupied in the development 
 of this church by music. Singing classes 
 and public entertainments with music as a 
 central source of pleasure and education 
 have been many. The history of the church 
 shows how great a place in the social de- 
 velopment of the community may be occu- 
 pied by music. One is reminded of the use 
 of music in the ancient development of the 
 church, both in medieval times and in the 
 inspired history of the Hebrews. 
 
 In the basement, under the old structure, 
 there is, in addition to an adequate heating 
 plant, a dining-room with kitchen at hand 
 for the use of the ladies. This room is 
 simple and strongly made, with cement 
 [76]. 
 
RURAL CHURCH BUILDINGS 
 
 floor, so that while it is used on occasion for 
 a church dinner without disturbance of the 
 main parts of the building, it may be used 
 as well for an evening game by the young 
 people, or a place of winter indoor sports 
 by the boys of the community. Without 
 the building are adequate grounds on which 
 the young people of the community have 
 had much pleasure. The residence of the 
 minister is near by in a manse owned by the 
 church, so that Du Page Church has a suit- 
 able plant capable of ministering in any way 
 to the needs of the whole community. At 
 times the congregation has appropriated 
 for evangelistic meetings and for public 
 religious services in which the young people 
 and men of the community have taken part 
 a grove not far from the church. Indeed 
 the whole countryside has been made tribu- 
 tary to this church because of its force and 
 its appeal to the whole community. 
 
 Du Page Church contains in its building 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 every feature most essential to the develop- 
 ment of community life. The building is 
 not thought perfect and in other communi- 
 ties a different adaptation might need to 
 be made, but for an open country church 
 it has in a large measure the facilities and 
 the means necessary for community service. 
 The reconstruction of the old building was 
 accomplished at a cash expenditure of ten 
 thousand dollars, the whole of which was 
 contributed within the community. The 
 building was dedicated without debt. Of 
 this church the Rev. Arthur Amy is pastor. 
 
 [78] 
 
VI 
 
 THE TOWN OR VILLAGE CHURCH 
 
 IN LEADERSHIP OF 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 THE village is not an alien in the 
 country, but it is the rural capital. 
 Cities are of a different order of life, but 
 villages are of the rural order. The busi- 
 ness of the village is to buy and sell with 
 country people. The residents of the vil- 
 lage are of the same stock as those who 
 till the farm. The increase or the decrease 
 of village population is identical with that 
 of the open country. The concerns — social, 
 economic and religious — of the village are 
 the concerns of the open country. There- 
 fore the village church should have a great 
 place in the leadership of country life. 
 [79] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 By the village in this connection we 
 mean a center of population not greater 
 than twenty-five hundred in number. There 
 are some places that come within the mean- 
 ing of this chapter where even more people 
 dwell, and some population centers of less 
 than twenty-five hundred have no real 
 connection with the country, because they 
 have to do with mining or manufacture. 
 Bearing these exceptions in mind, the rule 
 described is helpful in understanding the 
 relation of the village to the open country. 
 
 Unfoirtunately village churches have be- 
 come alienated from the country. The re- 
 lation of the city church to the open country 
 has been thought of and the fact that the 
 village is the capital of country life has 
 been forgotten. But the city church has 
 troubles enough of its own. It has the in- 
 finitely difficult problem of immigration. 
 It has the down-town and the working- 
 man's problem. Questions of moral weight 
 [80] 
 
VILLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 
 which do not trouble the open country, ex- 
 cept indirectly, have made impact upon the 
 city church. The village church should con- 
 cern itself with the country, as it seldom 
 does. As a rule, around the villages and 
 towns, which are centers of the economic 
 life of the farmer, there is a zone usually 
 two to four miles in width in which people 
 generally do not go to church. They have 
 no relation to the village churches which 
 stand beside the stores where they trade. 
 The churchgoer turns away from the village 
 or town to worship in some obscure rural 
 meeting-house or more often to worship not 
 at all. The village too often repels the 
 farmer. 
 
 The sources of this alienation are not 
 wholly religious. Around village and town 
 and small city has been built an economic 
 wall, which must be broken down, if the 
 farmers are to feel at home in the village 
 and town. There must be many lines of 
 [8i] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 connection and intercourse before worship 
 can become the crowning expression of 
 unity among those whose life centers in the 
 village. 
 
 Brilliant examples of the ministry of the 
 church in the village or the open country 
 are found in all sections of the country, 
 though their total number is small. Dr. 
 Silas E. Persons, Presbyterian minister 
 for twenty years in Cazenovia, New York, 
 was one of the first to see that his church 
 had lost its rural attendance. The road 
 to the church from a neighboring sec- 
 tion of farms, which used to bring twenty 
 families on Sunday morning, in recent years 
 was found to bring only three to church. 
 Dr. Persons began his ministry to the coun- 
 try by holding meetings in schoolhouses. 
 He found an amazing response to the 
 simple preaching of the gospel among a 
 people who for some strange reasons had 
 been denied its privileges for a generation. 
 [82] 
 
VILLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 
 So large and so promising were the results 
 that the policy of his church had to be 
 revised to fit the new tasks and responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 Dr. Persons and his people went about 
 the task with characteristic thoroughness. 
 Social meetings were devised, dinners of 
 welcome and other social occasions, for the 
 particular purpose of welcoming the new 
 converts to the village church. They were 
 made to feel at home. They were received 
 not into formal membership alone, but into 
 the heartiest share in the church so near the 
 center of their social and economic life. 
 These measures went forward throughout 
 a whole year, while new districts in the 
 country were invaded by the preacher, 
 seeking to give the gospel to those who at- 
 tended no church. The crowning act of 
 unifying the community in Cazenovia was 
 the annual fair established in September 
 as a meeting-place of all interested in the 
 [83] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 community. An exhibit of everything done 
 and made irf the community, plowing con- 
 tests, quilting competitions, sports on land 
 and water, engaged the attention of all the 
 people of the community. Nothing has 
 been for sale. The event has become a 
 great gathering of the people of Cazenovia 
 and vicinity. The first year the attendance 
 was to be counted in hundreds, but after 
 that in thousands. 
 
 The Rev. H. S. Mills, of Benzonia, 
 Michigan, is a Congregational minister to 
 whom the enlargement of his parish came 
 almost as a vision, after years of service in 
 a village where cultured and privileged 
 people of the countryside live. His expe- 
 rience is related in the book. The Making 
 of a Country Parish: A Story. Going out 
 first among the rural dwellers beyond the 
 normal bounds of his congregation, he spent 
 days and weeks in exploration of the relig- 
 ious needs of people outside the zone of 
 [84] 
 
VILLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 
 the village. He came back deeply im- 
 pressed with the need of a larger unit of 
 life and worship in his church. His people 
 engaged with him in a consecrated effort to 
 extend the parish bounds beyond their 
 traditional radius. They undertook with 
 him increasing burdens. They released 
 him from local service for the larger ad- 
 venture. Persistent effort to evangelize the 
 countryside, from which men had not been 
 accustomed to go to church, brought such 
 real results that the whole life and program 
 of the Benzonia church was changed. 
 
 Allies came to the church and its minister 
 from two quarters. The missionary super- 
 intendent of his own denomination offered 
 him, after considering the matter, an assist- 
 ant. Later another assistant was added, 
 with the growth of the work. This gave 
 an adequate parish force. With fine or- 
 ganizing ability the minister of the Ben- 
 zonia church has been able to accomplish 
 [85] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 five times as much with three pairs of hands 
 as he was able to do with one. A second 
 alliance of the parish came in the form of 
 cooperation with a neighboring denomina- 
 tion, which gave up to the Benzonia church 
 certain preaching points within its larger 
 parish, receiving in return a corresponding 
 surrender in another field at a distance. 
 This left to the church with enlarged vision 
 a great open territory in which it could 
 render cathedral service. 
 
 The results have been very great both in 
 the way of unifying the countryside under 
 a common religious leadership and in the 
 way also of increase in attendance and in 
 contributions in the Benzonia church itself. 
 
 In a village in the East where there 
 are three churches the problem of de- 
 generacy in the outlying locality became 
 very acute ; so much so that the moral tone 
 of the village was impregnated to an 
 alarming degree. To meet this situation 
 [86] 
 
VILLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 the churches of the village came together 
 in a Social Service League, recognizing 
 their common problem. Two near-by vil- 
 lages in the same township joined with 
 them. A social worker was engaged. 
 Through this medium an excellent work 
 was done. While not under the direction 
 of the churches exclusively, the work was 
 promoted by them, and thus they were 
 brought together in a form of federation 
 that made a unity of spirit in bettering the 
 village conditions that was invaluable. 
 
 Every village church should have a pro- 
 gram of service to the people of the open 
 country. Many churches in the village 
 will find that if they minister with accept- 
 ance to the farmers dwelling along the 
 country roads, they will thereby win the 
 villagers dwelling along the village streets. 
 We suggest the following brief program 
 for the village church. 
 
 (i) Persistent annual evangelization of 
 [87] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 the open country at meetings in school- 
 houses, in which the pastor shall have the 
 assistance of teams of laymen who shall go 
 out with him or by themselves to speak, to 
 testify, and to teach, in Sunday-schools and 
 religious meetings in the open country. 
 Unused church buildings, schoolhouses or 
 farmhouses, or in the summer open-air 
 places, may be used for these meetings. The 
 purpose in them all is to build up, not 
 primarily local congregations, though these 
 in some places may follow, but to build up 
 the village church by gathering into its 
 membership the people of the open country, 
 (2) In order to bridge the chasm between 
 the village and the country deliberate 
 methods of socialization are necessary. The 
 people of the country will not feel at home 
 in the village church, if they have been 
 alienated from it, without special modes of 
 welcoming them. It is not enough to as- 
 semble groups of converted people in the 
 [88] 
 
VILLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 
 country, and to receive them into member- 
 ship. It is profoundly important that they 
 be made members of the local church and 
 brought into working and vital union on 
 Sunday with those with whom they trade 
 throughout the week. 
 
 For this purpose a series of celebrations 
 of the holidays of the year is commended. 
 The village should be the center of com- 
 memorating the great days of the church 
 and the secular year. Days that are set 
 apart by the state and by the Church may 
 well be made the occasion of the gathering 
 of all the people from the countryside. If 
 they are foreigners this is a good method of 
 Americanization. If they are hard-worked, 
 these holidays will bring them together for 
 rest and recreation. If tenants are many, 
 these celebrations will enable them to meet 
 with the landlord in a democratic and 
 helpful manner. 
 
 (3) The village church should see that 
 [89] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 means are provided for the comfort of 
 country people at a central point in the 
 village. Horse-sheds are sometimes lack- 
 ing in the village, and as a form of social 
 service the opening of horse-sheds on the 
 church property for the free use of the 
 public is sometimes of sensational value. 
 But if the church should care for the horse, 
 it should care far more for the women and 
 children, who come with their men from 
 the country for business and practical pur- 
 poses. While the men are trading, the 
 women should have a comfortable place to 
 wait. It may well be in the church or other 
 public building. It should be near to the 
 stores, conveniently furnished to meet the 
 needs and to provide comfort for those who 
 have to wait. Such an enterprise may be 
 greatly enlarged to form a kind of forum 
 or meeting-hall where men and women may 
 have many services rendered such as are 
 needed in a busy farming community. 
 [90] 
 
yiLLAGE LEADERSHIP 
 
 (4) The church should bear in mind that 
 her place is to bring comfort and peace and 
 spiritual unity to the people. The village 
 church should be watchful of all the needs 
 of the countryside. It should provide 
 means for the discussion of general inter- 
 ests. It should bear in mind that these 
 general interests are almost surely agricul- 
 tural interests, for these are bonds the most 
 profound and the most pervasive in country 
 life. Churches should not scorn to be the 
 nursing mothers of enterprises which will 
 pass beyond their control. There are two 
 churches in New York state located in vil- 
 lages, whose members in their rural meet- 
 ings have conceived and planned the light- 
 ing of the village streets. This is a good 
 illustration of the form of social service of 
 value to the farmer as much as to the village 
 dweller. One village church in a neighbor- 
 hood made up of Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic people has planned and launched 
 [91] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 an enterprise which took form in a village 
 bank much needed by an honest, hard-work- 
 ing population. These illustrations are 
 given, not as the highest or the noblest thing 
 a church can do, but as examples of service 
 to be rendered by a village church attentive 
 to any and all the needs of the flock for 
 which it stands. The parish of the village 
 church lies far out of the village streets. 
 Minister and people must conceive their 
 work in all the village in the largest way 
 and bring into the fold of God all those 
 whose faces are turned at any time of the 
 week toward the streets of the village. 
 
 [92] 
 
VII 
 
 T^E COMMUNITY CENTER 
 CHURCH AS THE EMBODI- 
 MENT OF FEDERATION 
 AND RELIGIOUS UNION 
 
 THE doctrine of religious unity is dear 
 to the heart of all Christian people. 
 As much as any doctrine of the fathers this 
 ideal of their sons is powerful in the 
 modern heart, especially of business men 
 and farmers. One meets it in all parts of 
 the country. In every public gathering the 
 expression of the longing for religious 
 unity calls forth a tumultuous response. 
 Books without number have been written 
 upon it. Creeds and programs have been 
 conceived and produced in every part of 
 the country. Federations have been organ- 
 [93] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 ized in greater numbers than the denom- 
 inations which they would unite. Indeed 
 there is more than one denomination in the 
 country which was conceived and born with 
 the purpose of being a union of divided 
 Christian people. 
 
 There is a service rendered, though it be 
 temporary, by union churches and creeds 
 and programs and federations. This ser- 
 vice is partly negative. It appears to be 
 clearing the way for greater Christian 
 union. These measures put an end to the 
 old recriminations and condemn the former 
 cilstom of mutual criticism between de- 
 nominations. Yet union churches seldom 
 live long and the programs or creeds of 
 church federations do not get themselves 
 organized. The union of divided Christian 
 people is slow in, coming. In the United 
 States the marriage even of communions 
 bearing the same name is retarded and de- 
 layed by difficulties. 
 
 [94] 
 
FEDERATION AND UNION 
 
 The churches of the North American 
 Continent are looking to Canada, where 
 positive union seems to be near at hand. 
 The close sympathy of the Presbyterian, 
 Methodist, and Congregational Churches 
 and the working union of which they have 
 already more than a promise throws a light 
 of hope upon the divided state of American 
 Christianity. Many devout people hope 
 and pray that the imminent union may be 
 perfected, but in no other religious experi- 
 ence are we brought so plainly face to face 
 with the working of God's hand alone, as 
 in the profoundly difficult and delicate 
 enterprise of uniting the Christian 
 churches. 
 
 Meantime the church which serves the 
 community is an embodiment of the union 
 of Christian people. While men have been 
 dreaming ineflfective dreams of legislative 
 union between denominations, the Holy 
 Spirit has been teaching us to socialize the 
 [95] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 work of the churches. Ministers and 
 people have longed for a useful church. 
 Their hearts have expanded with interest 
 in social service. They have worked to- 
 gether in making the church a ministering 
 agency to the whole community. Wherever 
 this has been done, there has been found 
 the union and cooperation of Christian folk 
 about which federations and fusions have 
 talked and dreamed. 
 
 These community churches are found in 
 all denominations. They are stronger if 
 they have a denominational name and the 
 momentum of one of the great churches, 
 than if they be independent or union efforts. 
 They have come into existence through the 
 leadership of men whose heart God has 
 touched and whose eyes have been anointed 
 with the ability to see the new day. Service 
 of the whole community is a new develop- 
 ment of the spirit of man under the teach- 
 ing of the Spirit of God. 
 [96]' 
 
FEDERATION AND UNION 
 
 In the cities this relation between comity 
 or federation of churches and community 
 service is not so apparent as in the open 
 country, for in the country the population 
 is sparse and generally is diminishing. 
 There is no room for a church to serve the 
 people except in a cooperation of all the 
 Christian people in the community, and in 
 the country it has become apparent that 
 everywhere such community service, urban 
 or rural, is cooperative. Wherever it is 
 rendered it expresses the unity of Christian 
 folk, for service is the work of the Master. 
 About his work Christian people are not 
 in disagreement. In doing his work the 
 followers of the Master are brought to- 
 gether. To do the service which men need 
 to-day in the community is to express his 
 mind and will. The challenge to commun- 
 ity service is the true test of the Christian 
 in all denominations. It calls men of de- 
 vout mind together. It disregards the divi- 
 [97] 
 
THE CHURCH AT THE CENTER 
 
 sions between conservative and liberal. It 
 unites the devout and the humble of every 
 sort and name. It satisfies the longing of 
 humble folk, who find in service the very 
 thing for which they became Christians. It 
 is the rallying center around which all men 
 may be gathered, and in this center under 
 the flag of the Master his fellow servants 
 find the comfort and the faith which has 
 been in all times the motive and the reward 
 of the children of God. 
 
 [98] 
 
Hill 
 
 
 In. I I I 1 
 
 
 iili: