Sanctified Dollars How we get them and use them By Solomon Porter Hood Sanctified Dollars How we get them, And use them. By Solomon Porter Hood, Pa-stor St. Pa-iil's A. M. E. Church, Orange, N. J. PHILADELPHIA, PA., Jl. M. E. BOOK CONCERN P3I PINE STREET SnnttilicS Dollnrs THE MONEY WE RAISE. We raise many dollars in our church. We have special days which every pastor teaches his people to ob¬ serve, but of all the money we raise I think all will agree that the Dollar Money is the most important. Indeed if we could collect the Dollar Money, that is a dollar for each of the 800,000 members, and some, from their friends we could easily have a million dollars a year from Dollar Money alone. THE SMALL AMOUNT OF DOLLAR MONEY RAISED IN PRO¬ PORTION TO OUR MEMBERSHIP. The whole amount of Dollar Money raised annually by the Philadelphia Conference is $6,000. This is about the amount paid regularly by the Conference. Tak¬ ing a few years back it ran as follows: 1900, $6,619.89; 1901, $6,106.15; 1902, $6,108.34; 1903, $6,143.02; etc. It is thus safe to say that the Philadelphia Conference; 4 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS raises about $6,000 Dollar Money annually. There are in the Philadelphia Conference about 11,000 members, which clearly shows we are collecting a little over one half of the dollars. But this proportion does not hold good throughout the Church. Taking the whole Church for one quarennium, the one preceding the present, the financial secretary's report gives $533,994.28 as the amount of Dollar Money raised in four years, which is less than should have been paid in one year. We have taken the Philadelphia Conference as an ex¬ ample and it is among the conferences paying the highest amount per capita, or each member, and here the average is not over 65 cents. Some conferences with very large numbers do not average 50 cents a member, and some fall to as low an average as 33 cents a member. If we could collect from the whole 800,000 members just 50 cents a member we would have each year a revenue of $400,000 from Dollar Money, and in four $1,600,000 or three times as much as we received last quarennium. What would this mean, with our Bishops and gen¬ eral officers' salaries remaining as they are; there would be no increase expense for salaries, but it would mean to give the cause of missions, education, church extensioi and every superannuated preacher, every widow an$ Sow WE GET THEM 5 orphan three times that which they receive now. Surely we should work and pray for every man and woman to pay his quota of the Dollar Money. As we have said this is the most important of all the money we raise. First, on account of the objects for which it is raised, or for what is accomplished with it; and second, (and this applies to all the money we raise), on account of the people, or the condition of the people from whom the money comes; and third, the means and methods by which it is raised, and the estimate placed upon a man's minister¬ ial worth from this, perhaps more than any other one standard; and fourth, from the amount of work, and the kind of effort it takes to raise it. It is these considerations which have led to giving the churches this little booklet. One of the greatest things in raising money for any cause is to let people know clearly the purpose for which it is to be used, then to make them feel it is sacredly de¬ voted to the purposes for which it was given. Most pastors try very hard to make members know what the Dollar Money is for, yet, after all, many get the idea that the money is only to pay the bishops; indeed I knew an old member of a church who called it the bishop's money in spite of the fact that for years pastors have stood and said to that very congregation that they knew of no 6 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS greater number of things anywhere that one dollar was made to do than that raised for our Dollar Money. It is strange how hard it is to get us to understand, then to remember the plainest things. The Bible does so by tell¬ ing them over and over. Indeed this is about all preach¬ ing is, telling the old story again and again in different ways, presenting varied phases of the same truths. Over and over, year after year all that concerns the dollar money has not only been told from the pulpit, but is in the discipline. Few people have disciplines, and fewer still who have them, read them, and still fewer study them. REASONS FOR THIS BOOKLET. We have therefore thought that this little booklet, not written at all for the ministers, but wholly for the laity, going into the homes of our members might call special attention to this one great phase of our church work, and be helpful. First in that it would call special attention to the Dollar Money; second, that it would not require a person to look as long for what related to this subject as would be necessary in examining the discipline; third, it might so interest some that they would be led to get a discipline and give the whole subject closer and more thorough study and thus become more deeply and HOW WE GET THEM 7 intelligently interested in this and other phases of our church work. Perhaps some would say there is no need of this, the pastors explain it enough. This book is intended to assist their explanation. If a member hears it on Sabbath, he can go home and take up this little work and have his eyes assist his ears in making a deeper impression upon his mind of what he has heard and needs to know. Then who has not heard the pastor begin in January to drum about the Dollar Money and increase his beating and hammering until the very last night before he goes to conference, raising such a din and fury that scarcely anything else could be heard. The time has come for our church membership to become so well drilled upon this great subject that they will pay voluntarily without this din and fury. SANCTIFIED DOLLARS. All monies used for Christian purposes come under this term, that is set apart for sacred purposes. One of the objects of nearly all organizations is to raise funds, not as we often suppose for the benefit of the organization but to enable the organization to do its work. The Church is a great human organization for Christian pur¬ poses working under divine guidance. All monies raised 8 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS by it are to carry out these purposes in some form. The best system that we have adopted so far is the dollar money. One has only to glance at the purposes for which it is used and the way it is divided up among the different church interests to be convinced of the utility of the system. THE FORTY-SIX PER CENT. Forty-six per cent, of the Dollar Money is sent to the financial secretary. This forty-six per cent, sent to him is used to pay the salaries of our thirteen bishops who re¬ ceive $2,000 a year and $500 in addition for travelling expenses, making the full amount paid from the Financial Department to each bishop $2,500 a year, making $32,500, the amount paid annually to the thirteen bishops. There is also a special allowance made for the travelling ex¬ penses of the bishops who preside over the West Indies, West Africa, and South Africa. We have eleven general officers: Financial Secretary, Missionary Secretary, three Editors, General Business Manager, Secretary of Educa¬ tion, Secretary of the Sunday School Union, Secretary of Church Extension, Secretary of Preachers' Aid, and Sec¬ retary of Allen League; eight of these receive $1,350 a year, annually altogether $10,800. The Financial Secre¬ tary receives $1,500, making a total of $12,300 paid to HOW WE USE THEM 9 general officers annually out of the forty-six per cent, of the Dollar Money sent to the general fund. Besides this the Secretary of the Preachers' Aid had his salary, $1,350, paid for the first year of the present quadrennium from this forty-six per cent., and the Secretary of the Allen En¬ deavor for the first two years, all from this forty-six per cent, of Dollar Money. Ten per cent, of the Dollar Money is sent to the Sec¬ retary of Church Extension to help build churches in places where they are not able to build for themselves or to save those which are so menaced by debt that, but for this efficient department, they would be lost. Eight per cent, of the Dollar Money is sent to the Secretary of Education to assist in paying the salaries of the professors and teachers in our schools, and maintain the sacred cause of educa¬ tion, more especially of those schools and departments of colleges preparing men for the ministry of our church. We have thus far accounted for the use of the forty- six per cent., ten per cent., and eight per cent, of the money, making sixty-four per cent, of the Dollar Money. This leaves thirty-six per cent which is held by the annual conferences and used to assist the widows and orphans of itinerant preachers, the worn out or superannuated preach¬ ers, and those who have not received their allowance. 10 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS To illustrate just how the Dollar Money is used, we will take the Philadelphia Conference of 1907. Whole amount of Dollar Money .$6,424.93 46 per cent, to the financial department 2,956.23 10 per cent., church extension . 642.44 8 per cent., educational 513.95 36 per cent, remaining in the conference 2,312.79 Total $6,424.93 It will be thus seen even after we have sent away the amount for general purposes what a large amount re¬ mained for local, or the conference claims. THE THIRTY-SIX PER CENT FOR CONFERENCE CLAIMS. Then the thirty-six per cent, of this money which re¬ mains in the conference which raises it; this is to aid in the support of the men who have for years preached the Gospel, and worn themselves out in the service, and are thus no longer acceptable to congregations or utterly un¬ able to do the work.. This Dollar Money is what stands between them often and abject poverty or disgrace. " THE SUPERANNUATED PREACHER. Possibly there are few more pathetic sights, than the aged preacher, with his well worn black suit, face wrinkled and body shattered and weakened from his long service in HOW WE GET THEM 11 the Christian warfare, unable to do further service, totter¬ ing up to receive his allowance from the annual confer¬ ence. He was a power in his day, but his day is past. He once held the leading charges, but even the missions do not want him now. He has raised dollars for the Church, built church edifices, saved church properties from the sheriff's hammer, above all has been the instrument in the hand of God to open the gate of eternal life to even more than he knows. But the old man has seen his best days, and he is merely holding on now until his summons comes to go home. He sits in the conference where once his voice was heard shaping the work of the church, but now he seldom speaks, simply anxiously waits, hoping that the Dollar Money report will be such that his allowance will not be cut down. Last year in Philadel¬ phia conference there were five of these aged veterans; all save one received $150, a little over $12 a month. This is good; as much, we think, as most of the conferences pay. Now while this amount is a great blessing, yet all know it is not what it ought to be, though even this only becomes possible as people pay their Dollar Money. This is one of the claims paid out of the thirty-six per cent, that remains for distribution in the conference 12 sanctified d0l1/abs which raises the money. Can anyone think of a more sacred object to which the money could be applied? the preacher's widow and ^orphans. Almost just as pathetic and surely just as needy as the worn out or superannuated preachers are the widows or orphans of the ministers who by death have been taken away from a family. From the fact that a woman is a minister's widow, her station of life has been changed and she has been put in a rank and station which makes get¬ ting the kind of employment she should have, more dif¬ ficult while she is compelled to sustain the Christian dignity of the class in which her life has placed her. Her husband has been taken away and left a wife very often with little or nothing to depend upon. Surely such a woman is no better than any other, and yet if she has been a faithful wife, her work and worth to the church has only been second to her husband. The church but honors itself in its efforts to aid her, and the children of the deceased preacher. No other class of professional men, if they do their duty, is more poorly paid according to the service rendered than the preacher. None make greater sacrifices than he and hence none are more worthy of proper care, nor sympathy in the hour of need. And surely no other class of women are called upon to bear HOW WE USE THEM 13 more, suffer more, and do more than the preacher's wife. And when these women are left widows and these child¬ ren, orphans, the church they served can do no greater duty than to care for them. THE UNDERPAID PREACHER. In every conference there are a few appointments that pay living salaries. Nearly two-thirds of the charges in every conference are unable to sustain a man and his family. With those who are sent to them it is a continuous struggle to keep up. The minister and his family must present a respectable appearance, he must be prepared to entertain strangers, he must give something to charity, he must have books, papers and magazines to know what is going on and keep abreast of the times. In most cases the coat he has to cut is larger than the cloth. He is promised a certain amount, a salary. If he can meet all the other church claims and get it, all right; if not, he must struggle on, paid or unpaid. We think we tell the bare truth when we say that more men of this class of struggling charges finish the year unpaid, even the small amounts promised, than are paid. Now what is his only hope for a little of this deficit? The Dollar Money. It is from this amount that remains in the conference that the underpaid preacher gets some little part of what is his 14 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS due. Out of this he hopes to pay his subscription to the different periodicals, and his fare back to his appointment. Surely no one will deny that these are not sacred objects for which we raise our Dollar Money. THE JOY OF PAYMENT. Now in consideration of the good the money does, ought it not to be a joy to every member of the church to thus take part in sustaining the general work of the church, in meeting the wants of the needy and comforting the hearts of some of its most earnest self-sacrificing workers. Men count it noble to aid the cause of charity to simply help the poor. But how much more noble is it to aid those who are poor for the Kingdom of God's sake. Some men who could be making money at other things, double and treble the amount received for preaching the Gospel are conscientiously ministers, because they feel called to be. THOSE WHO WILL NOT BEAR THE HARDSHIP. How many men are there to-day who simply would not be ministers on account of the meagre salaries paid, and the restriction placed upon those who enter the min¬ istry. Now when there are men and women brave enough HOW WE USE THEM 15 to go to work for God in these fields they should be sus¬ tained. HOWLING FOR THE MONEY. This is a rough word to use in this connection, for dogs howl. Dark, rainy and dismal nights, what can be more unpleasant than to hear the howling of a dog. A long weary wail, but such is the Dollar Money cry. I recollect once going to a church as pastor and at the first official Board meeting saying to the Stewards, "Now, brethren, I do not wish to have to get up and wail for my salary before this congregation. I expect the Stewards to take the responsibility. I will make plans, and do the work, fulfilling my whole duty, but the asking for my money is your work." "Well," replied one Steward, "all the men who preceded you had to beg the congregation for their money and if you want yours you will have to do it too." And unfortunately while we have many members who feel it a pleasure to pay all church claims, pastor's salary and Dollar Money, etc., there are many others who do expect that the pastor shall set up & wail for it. Indeed there are some who seem to enjoy the agony of the man on the rack. Pastors ask and ask, and beg until they put themselves in the position that the mem¬ ber feels he has conferred some special favor on the pastor 16 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS by paying the Dollar Money. This comes from the fact that the pastor feels he must get the money, and he is willing to beg and pray and plead and travel from door to door of his members until he has raised the required amount. Why, because he knows first that there is a rivalry as to whether he shall raise as much and more this year than was raised last. Indeed here the sanctified dollars really lose their sanctity in the preacher's mind and his whole idea often is to beat. He comes to conference saying he beat his predecessor in Dollar Money and the sacred purpose is lost sight of in a foolish rivalry to beat. Then the pastor knows his standard will be some¬ times more judged by the Dollar Money he has raised than the sermons he preached, the souls brought to Jesus Christ, or the standing and force he has in the community. The question will be, how much Dollar Money did you raise? and hence he feels that life and death are in his Dollar Money report. When he goes to conference if he con¬ siders himself a real big man he may try to slide through by reporting "progress," even though he knows he has gone as far as he can. And even then there is no man little or big who falls short in his Dollar Money who does not feel a certain shame and confusion of face. Every man should do his best. Every loyal African Methodist preacher will do his best, and feel an honest ftow WE USE THEM degree of pride when he has succeeded. But after a man has done his best and failed, he ought not to feel as if he had hurt his standing. Now when members know just what is at stake, and how a pastor is held responsible for their obligations, and sometimes almost publicly humil¬ iated because he has not done that which was their duty to do, it is a cruel injustice in them to worry the soul of the man of God this way. Often members keep his mind in a ferment of anxiety about that which is their plain duty. But if they fail to do it why should contumely and shame be thrown upon him for their neglect. Why should the close of every service for weeks before conference when people should be leaving the church with sacred and holy impressions upon their hearts—why should he be compelled to stand coaxing and begging. Why should be for months be hoping and fearing, dreading about the Dollar Money. If the church is right and we believe it is in asking for the money, then God requires it. Will a man rob God, says the prophet, but ye have robbed me? Wherein have we robbed thee ? In tithes and in offerings. Let us teach the people to pay these and all monies not as a favor to us as pastors, but as a duty to the church and to God. Teach them to move from a motive within themselves. He is a good beggar, is a common expression about 18 SANCTIFIED DOLLABS a preacher who can harrangue money out of a congrega¬ tion, while they are amused and tickled at his adroitness in getting it. We shall ever believe that money so gotten cost more in the sacrifice of the solemn dignity of worship, and belittling the ministry of Jesus Christ than the money is worth. Has not the time come for us to make the people feel we are not to beg for the Dollar Money. To let them know that the money is not due the pastor, nor after all so much due the conference as it is a sacred obligation from God. That it is as much a part of the duty to pay it as to meet any just obligation. That it is more than a duty, that it is a great Christian privilege to use the means with which God has blessed them, to sustain the greatest organiza¬ tion of the world, the Christian Church. Our great excuse is that our people are not educated up to paying claims without this continuous begging, but when will they be, and who is to educate them. Is it not the plain duty of every pastor to adopt such measures as will reach the result other than by a public howl for two or three months. Our people can and will be taught and we must teach them. COMPLAINTS. There are those who are sometimes willing to readily respond for money for local purposes such as current ex¬ penses, mortgage debts, pastor's salary, etc., but show a reluctance about the general church claims. HOW WE USE THEM 19 Let it be remembered first that without the general church we would stand as so many disunited units, that what the federal government is to the States our general church is to us. That any reluctance to sustain our gen¬ eral church places us where the same action would place a citizen to the United States Government, in the ranks of the disloyal. If one of this class goes to a lawyer or a physician for services he expects to pay a price com¬ mensurate with his ability. If we see a gentleman of a certain class whose training and education place him in a certain rank we believe under ordinary circumstances he ought to be sustained accordingly; and the sooner we learn to sustain the Negro Bishop, general officers or ministers, according to his rank and place, the better. SACRED SOURCES. We have said the Dollar Money was sacred, on ac¬ count of the sources from which it comes. It is usually collected just before conference, at a time when the pres¬ sure is greatest. Often some of .the conference claims have been shut out by some other pressing obligation when they should have been collected and during the last few weeks of the conference year these must be brought up. Then more likely than not the pastor's salary has gotten back and his necessities compel him to see that what 20 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS is due him is gotten. All this money is to be collected from poor people, who very likely have been heavily taxed not only to keep up their regular weekly obligations but to give on special occasions, such as rallies, etc. Very often we see in the journals and periodicals, how to live on $6o per month, etc., when the majority of poor people from whom we raise our church monies are living on less. These people too are dressing well, many of them paying for property and educating their children. So when we come to collect our church monies we come to a people struggling under peculiar burdens. And yet we believe and know from actual experience that those who have made the honest struggle to meet these church obli¬ gations are always the most prosperous and have the most to give when called upon. We challenge anyone to dispute that the people who give most regularly are as well fed, dressed and have as comfortable homes as those who do not and in many cases have more. No human being ever gained by withholding from God. HONOR THE LEADERS. Let us honor them with our dollars, and be able to have a representative class of churchmen that we can point to with pride, because we are by our loyalty holding them before the world in the dignity their work and HOW WE USE THEM 21 worth demands. The Dollar Money of the A. M. E. Church does this. There is not another class of Negroes in the world whose words or actions can affect us as the bishops. From the very position in which we have placed them and the manner we sustain them makes the world know that we have men of our own race in whom we have confidence, and that we deem worthy of all we can consistently give them. If other representative men live in good homes, travel in sleeping and dining cars, and re¬ ceive just compensation, we feel ours must, especially when they represent the greatest cause in the world. Members sometimes compare our church with those denominations who have no bishops and are wont to think that the churches who do not have them to sustain have much less financial burden than we. But as to this, it would be very much more honorable for any member to withdraw from the church, than to remain and complain about the proper compensation of those officers which are a constitutional part of it. We have never been found too poor to do anything we desire, and the class that are disposed to complain spend more money most likely for unimportant things than in sustaining the church. We are poor, but our poverty has never been known to affect us in anything we wanted to eat, drink, or wear. Why should it upon these higher sacked claims. 22 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS DO NOT BELITTLE THE PREACHER. True respect for the ministry demands that the Dollar Money should be paid without the preacher crawling in the dust of humiliation for it. And no member of a church who has the proper idea of duty, true reverence for a sacred cause, or the right idea of the Christian life will permit a pastor to beg for church claims. Not only should each right-minded person pay but unite in the effort to have all pay the Dollar Money in a voluntary manner without the fuss that is usually made about it. When a minister says, "pay your Dollar Money," he does not sim¬ ply say pay the salary of the bishop and the general offi¬ cers, but support the worn out preacher and sustain the widow and the orphan, help home and foreign missions and education. The insurance man comes to our doors and collects thousands and we see it piled up in great splendid buildings and high salaried officers who ride in auto¬ mobiles and spend thousands in luxuries, but we do not complain, nor do we make him beg for the money. We spend money and say it is ours because we made it, but the body, the health, the strength, the time was not ours, from whom did we get it. Are we not all stewards and dare we refuse to give God his own, or should we in¬ sult the collector of His revenue, especially when that col¬ lector unfortunately is his God commissioned servant. HOW WE USE THEM 23 While no one thinks of it and. all take it for granted the preacher should be the collector it is a very great question whether some plan should not be carried out, taking the responsibility off his shoulders. What real spiritual or creditable intellectual work can a man do whose main energies for at least two months of the year are used up in an harrowing anxious effort to raise the Dollar Money. Men pride themselves on being Dollar Money kings, but it is a better thing to be a workman rightly dividing the word of truth than the greatest Dollar Money king. We know it is our blessed privilege to raise money, and help trans¬ form filthy lucre into sanctified dollars, but no true man of God can gauge his ministerial worth to the cause of Christ by the money he raises. And if the mistake is made here in this life by measuring him by that standard he will find the measurement different in the final accounting. Let us lay aside ourselves, and teach the people to the people, that giving money is service and that even tainted money can be sanctified to the honor and glory of God. THOSE WHO FEEL THE CONSCIENTIOUS DUTY. A preacher of the Philadelphia Conference called to see a member of his church who was sick. It was a few weeks before the meeting of the annual conference. He preached, sang and prayed with the sick member and started to go. "Wait," said the sick member, "I want to pay my Dollar Money so if I pass away you will have it. 24 SANCTIFIED DOLLARS Before the next Sunday the member was in eternity. The preacher held the dollar up before the congregation the next Sabbath and said, "Here is a dollar from eternity. Brother was on the brink when he gave it to me, but this dollar represents him here though he has gone." It was a sacred dollar, a sanctified dollar. But this dying man's dollar was no more sacred really than hundreds of others. There are some who do feel it their duty and come saying, "Elder, here is my not your Dollar Money." That dollar represents more than cold coin, more than so much metal, more than its exchangeable value in mer¬ chandise. It represents church loyalty, true respect to the pastor, conscientious ideas of duty, willingness in service, and a desire to help those who are dependent upon the church for aid. It represents that much burden taken off a pastor's mind, that much relief from wearing anxiety and brings real joy instead of care. Who is there that would not if he could do all this with a dollar, and lift his dollar entirely out of the realm of mere finance to a place of true worship as an offering to his God. In our church there are some who, like this dying man, not only feel I must pay the money, but it is my duty to pay it, and I am doing a favor to no one as much as myself by discharging an honest obligation which in the end makes me a nobler and richer person in heart and soul God loveth the cheerful giver.