The Church on the Changing Frontier

Church Ef

members, and just how much are they contributing through their program and activities to the life about them, toward bringing about a genuine Christianization of a community life? Religious values, it is true, are spiritual and cannot be tabulated in statistical ta

ities fo

a Bret Harte flavor is told of an early meeting in Beaverhead County. The hall in Glendale, a busy place then, with banks, restaurants, even a paper, was filled with a rough-and-ready audience of miners and cowboys listening to a lantern lecture. Vastly delighted over the

e larger centers have an abundance of church meetings. All but two of the town and two of the city churches have two preaching services each Sunday. But only three country and two village churches are so fortuna

ORE BUT

h at Des Moines

ss than two services a Sunday are country churches. Yet most of these are holding the only service in their community. Seventy-three and five-tenths per cent. of all the country churches have less than four services each month, and 44 per cent. have only one service or even less. All but one of the eigh

ake travel difficult in winter and early spring. In summer, haying is carried on very generally seven days of the week, and church attendance is a problem even if the church service is held at night. The aggregate monthly attendance is 18,337 and as the total nu

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un

hes V

ches

ches

ches

capacity 129[5]

e membership

nce at services

lled on the average. Nothing is more disheartening than a church three-quarters e

n Se

ches do unite, the majority for Thanksgiving Day services and in fewer instances, for Chautauqua, Baccalaureate, Memorial Day, and summer evening services. In two instances, two churches, Methodist and Presbyterian, a

OF CO?P

h being pastorless joined with the Pre

nge

being a union meeting of two churches. Pastors conducted fifteen meetings, in three of which a neighboring pastor or evangelist assisted. Fourteen meetings were held by visiting clergymen. The meetings were well attended, extending from seven to thirty-five days, the average meeting lasting thirteen days. Eighty-seven per cent. of the 385 converts and the thirteen who were reclaimed joined the

ings and the town churches held four meetings, both averaging five new members each, the village churches making 8 per cent. of the total gain and the tow

and the

ithout it, but the children have had more chance to know the Church. Sunday schools are to-day the most frequent form of church work in these Western counties. They

y school in addition to its own. Two groups of two churches each combine their Sunday school

ts or open country. These union schools have a fourth of the total Sunday school enrollment. People on ranches and far from town start Sunday schools under local leadership without waiting for churches to be organized. When a newco

ght out in a comparison between Sunday scho

llage Town

churches 3

day schools 5

ch membership 745 5

urch Sunday schools 89

l Sunday schools 2,373

of all Sunday schoo

of all Sunday sch

y Sunday schools this enrollment equals only 91 per cent. of the resident church membership. Thirty-five churches have a larger Sunday school enrollment than resident church membership; all nine churches helping with Union Sunday schools have a smaller membership than the Union school enrollment. This disc

e Sunday schools is about 47 per cent. higher than village church enrollment. There are no Union Sunday schools in the towns or city. Except in the city the average Sunday school enrollment exceeds average resident church

rships, show that these churches are not recruiting new members from their Sunday schools as they might. Nor are the churches relating themselves to any extent to the separate Sunday schools in outlying sections. This can be done, and is most successful in a few cases. For example, the Apache Valley S

.8 per cent. for the city schools. Yet only twenty-five schools make definite efforts to increase their attendance. The various methods used are contests s

ly thirty-five declared for church membership. Nine town and city schools have classes to prepare for church membership, eight schools have sent twenty scholars into some kind of Christian work during the last ten years. A country Sunday school in Hughes County has shown w

the greatest needs of this country is more local and better trained leadership, not only for Sunday schools but for the community at large.

day institute for the study of Sunday school methods and missions. Twenty-nine schools make regular missionary offerings, and seven take them once a year. Twelve schools h

re is one, takes the adult class at the expense of the growing boy who needs him more than the adults. Graded lessons are used exclusively in ten schools and twenty others use them in some classes. Seventeen schools have organized classes. Sixt

"hikes" in seventeen schools (four village, nine town and four city). The "Anti-Kants" is an interesting class of young women. Every time one of the class becomes engaged, there is a party and a shower, called a graduation. Twenty graduations have taken place in the history of the class. About half of the schools have programs for special days, especially for Children's Day, Christmas and Easter. One Union school has an Easter picnic

ITTLE P

leenburg, Wyoming, does

IME WAS

class picnic i

urch Org

re village and nine country churches. There are twenty-eight Ladies' Aids, thirteen Missionary Societies and various Guilds, Circles, Auxiliaries, a Manse Society, a King's Daughters, an Adelphian and a Dorcas. The total enrollment is 1,682, or ab

males over twenty-one years of age, and only 3 per cent. of the total male population between the ages of eighteen and forty-four in the four counties. Men and women have two organizations in common. One is a missionary society which, contrary to custom, shares i

Lef

hurches have special clubs for their boys. The enrollment is sixty-nine, or about 21 per cent. of all the boys under twenty-one enrolled in city and town church membership. Boys and girls together have two organizations in two town churches with a membership of seventy-three. One is a Junior League, and the other a Junior Baptist Young People's Union. Young people have twenty-eight organizations in ten country, three village, nine town and si

are often community affairs, especially in the case of the women's organizations. In twenty organizations, the attendance exceeds the enrollment. The men's clubs work for the church, and several do

um and La

d in Sheridan by the combined Men's Clubs of the Congregational and Protestant churches. This was the first open

elopment of demo

the interest of truth and mutual understanding

discussion of all vital ques

audience from the Forum Floor w

from responsibility for utterances b

?" "The Farmers' Movement in America," "Bolshevism," "Feeding the World: Is It America's Job?" There is no more encouraging sign of community inte

F A COMMU

nity woman's club in a small hamlet is studying missions as a part of its program. In one community, the Ladies' Aid of the only church, which is pastorless, meets regularly and holds a yearly bazaar to pay the occasional supply preacher and keep the church in repair. At the "Frontier Day" given by a Dude Ranch, the Ladies' Aid from a nearby hamlet had a booth for selling hamburgers and lemonade. In one of the mining camps, the Ladies' Aid of the Mission church sent out invitations for an afternoon tea to raise money for a new piano for the Kindergarten. It turned out to be a great social event attended by wom

l garden party once a year. This club is one of the activities of a M. E. community church located in a new dry-farming community which is having a struggle to make both ends meet, but is doing good work in that community. The people are loyal, even enthusiastic. There is not,