Another current development is the religious social service director. For some time the religious education director has been a recognized force in church work. The social service director in church life is coming into the foreground, bearing the responsibility of working out social welfare programs for the church services, directing the training of the membership in volunteer social work, inaugurating religious social surveys, in fact, carrying the social message of the church into all the church activities. The social service activities of the church have often been used as a net for catching the churchless. Social service as a bribe, however, will fail. Genuine religious social service is that which emanates naturally and easily from the lives of the church members and of the church itself, asking no pay and possessing no sinuous ends. The church that inaugurates a social program for building up the family life, the play life, the moral life, the economic life, as well as the religious life, in the community in which it is located, most truly represents a socialized church. The church, however, that uses its social welfare program merely in order to build itself up, fails to understand the social calling as a religious institution. The social thought of the Hebrews revolved about the idea of social justice; of Jesus, about the concept of active love; and of modern Christianity, at its best, about an unselfish social program for bringing about a just, co-operative, and harmonious life, ranging in its operation from the individual in his family and local community life to the individual as a functioning unit in a new world society. CHAPTER XXVII METHODS OF SOCIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION In any line of thought or endeavor a correct method of procedure is all-important. Inaccurate theories of procedure have wrecked nations, hindered civilization for centuries at a time, and flooded the world with negative and harmful ideas. It will be worth while, therefore, to consider the methods by which sociology has advanced. The ancient makers of social proverbs crystallized what they had individually observed many times to be true, or what they had heard repeated on many occasions as being true. Such methods were based on observation and generalization, carelessly used. Moreover, the data at the command of the makers of social proverbs were very limited.