The Church on the Changing Frontier

hurch

use a budget system. That is, they set down at the beginning of the fiscal year an itemized budget of the amount which they need, on the basis of which amount subscriptions are obtained from each church member or family. Twenty-five churches finance all their work this way and ten churches budget only their local needs. Thirty-two churches make an annual every-member canvass, i.e., every m

churches, women's organizations undertake to raise some part of the church expenses in various ways, from regular weekly contributions to

h, by collections, and the balance of the $17,197.00 by miscellaneous means. This is an average amount per church of $990.25. Here again it is clear that the larger the membership of a church, the greater the impetus from within for further growth and activities. This condition is evident in the various church campaigns. The city churches raise more than twice as much as the churches in the

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ount raised and spent, in

this prosperous period followed the lean one of high freight rates and low prices for farm products. Church finances depend in part upon the practical presentation of the financial needs of the Church, and upon education in Christian stewardship-i.e., in learning the value of chu

he total amount spent, $41,268.79, or about 43 per cent., paid salaries, $24,657.55, or 25 per cent., was given to missions and benevolences, and the remaining 32 per cent. was used for local e

ised which is used to pay salaries and local expenses is higher in country and village churches, while the proportion given for missions and benevolences is lower than in the town and city churches. In other words, the country and village churches have less surplus over and above their running expenses. Benevolences receive 14.3 per cent. of all money ra

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the year preceding the survey was $12,937.50, which went to forty-one churches in amounts varying from $50 to $750. Two more churches would have been receiving aid if they had had a pasto

es give $1,320 and receive $4,152. By counties, Beaverhead gets back 46.8 per cent. of what she gives, Hughes gets back 47.3 per cent., Sheridan 37.2 per cent., while Union is the only county which receives more than she gives-24.4 per cent. The churches which receive aid send back to the boards $2,872.79. In a word, the churches send money

his needs. Nevertheless, the problem of financial aid is always a serious one. Subsidization of persons as well as institutions must be wisely handled or moral deterioration is likely to set in. The Y. M.

f the Boards to help a church to a status of self-support? Forty-four of the seventy active churches have had aid during the last thirty years. Only four of these churches are now self-supporting. It has already been

rches have received $40,850, town churches $67,465, village churches $47,430 and country churches $51,425. Of the total amount, $44,980 has gone to fifteen strategic service churches. In addition, four of the aided churches receiving $27,000 serve special groups of population, of which

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arge unevangelized area, served by a

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ervice," "It is in the nature of the case that the conquest of distance by the Gospel will take very disproportionate amounts of money compared with other forms of missions. It can be cheap only when it is adequate." The policy has too often been to help keep alive a great many struggling churches which did little to justify support, rather than to develop a smaller number of churches in greater need o

estant church in a small village, a railroad center, located fairly in the center of a large unevangelized area. In one of its valleys, a resident recently remarked that they had heard no preaching for twenty years. This instance of neglect is in Montana, and the territory has been allocated to this denomination since 1919, so that other churches are keeping their hands off. Yet this church, which had a resident pastor until two years before the time of the survey, is now being served by a pastor of a town church living thirty-five miles away who pr