Formerly, three resident ministers lived in the community, but for twelve years there had been none. The Baptist Church holds only occasional preaching services, the Disciples have depended for their preaching upon student supplies from a neighboring theological school, while the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church have lived outside the township at North Bloomfield, five miles away, where there are Methodist Episcopal, Disciples, and Congregational churches. The Methodist Episcopal Church at Greene, therefore, was part of a circuit of two churches. As is usually the case among farming people of Ohio where there are no resident ministers the people of Greene Township received very few pastoral calls. Several families in the southeastern section of the township have had little or no association with any ministers or churches. Mr. Gill recently visited the township on a pleasant Sunday, and learned that less than 30 of its 700 people that day went to church. As an indication that the churches of Greene Township have been losing their hold on the people, it may be noted that an increasing number of families do not ask clergymen to officiate at funerals. The undertaker sometimes conducts a short service at the grave, or his wife reads a prayer and passage of scripture. In view of immemorial custom, the absence of a clergyman on such occasions is significant. The total amount of money contributed annually to the support of the ministry in Greene Township has been not more than $600. Of this the Methodist Episcopal Church paid its minister $300. The North Bloomfield Church in an adjacent township paid him $500, so that the total salary of the Methodist minister who gave part of his time to Greene Township was $800. Obviously this is not enough to support a family and enable the minister to keep a motor car or a horse. A large part of his time and energy, therefore, was spent in walking from parish to parish and from house to house through an area of 50 square miles. In January of 1917 a joint committee was appointed by the churches of Greene Township to consider the questions of securing a resident pastor, increasing the size of the Sunday school and congregation, and rendering all other forms of service needed in the community. It was decided by this committee that a federated church should be formed in which each constituent ecclesiastical body would preserve its own identity. Each church would independently meet its obligations to its own denomination in all matters outside of the community, while all the members of the churches would unite in local activities, including the support of a resident minister. A country life institute was held to stimulate the desire for community improvement, and the plan of church betterment was set forth and adopted.