The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life OpportunityFiske, George Walter
History
The Challenge of the Country: A Study of Country Life Opportunity
Fiske, George Walter
Sociology, Rural
This reminds us very forcibly that one factor essential to country church
success is a liberal financial policy. In the smaller country churches we
seldom find any business policy, and no plan at all for the future. The
most common method is the annual subscription paper, with special
subscriptions for repairs or emergencies. The motive is apparently strict
economy rather than efficiency. It never pays to run a cheap church, for
it cheapens the whole enterprise. More and more the weekly-payment pledge
system is coming into use and with it a careful planning of the budget at
the beginning of the year, guided by an earnest purpose to keep the church
business-like, the minister promptly paid, the property well in repair and
the enterprise spiritually successful. Often the new consecration of the
pocket-book has been the first symptom of a thorough-going revival.
10. _Adequate Equipment_
A large proportion of country churches are simply one-room buildings. This
explains many failures. In order to serve the community at all adequately,
the church must have social rooms for a variety of neighborhood purposes,
and it must make provision for its Sunday school. About four-fifths of the
boys and girls in the Sunday schools of America live in the rural
districts. They should be given good rooms. Without an effective building
for social and educational purposes,--a parish house or at least a
vestry,--the country church is seriously handicapped. With a good
equipment the church often becomes the social center for the whole
neighborhood.
11. _A Masculine Lay Leadership Developed and Trained_
It takes more than a minister to make a church successful. The King's
Business requires MEN. Women are usually active and loyal. The men are
often just as _loyal_ but less active because of lack of opportunity. The
most enthusiastic meetings the writer has attended for months were in a
rural county in Michigan, a county without a trolley. The meetings were
held for three days under the auspices of the Men and Religion Forward
Movement and all the forty-five Protestant churches of the county were
represented by ministers and laymen. The laymen outnumbered the ministers
about ten to one and they showed the keenest interest in the proposition
to make the work of religion in their county a man's job.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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