The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 70

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70

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Every few years the city pastor is compelled to get
together an altogether new congregation. Churches

_ that, ten years ago, occupied central geographical

positions, as far as their membership was concerned,
to-day have only a few families living within walking
distance. Houses that were occupied by a large per-
centage of members a short time ago are now occu-
pied by strangers, to whom these churches mean
nothing. This continuous floating of a city popu-
lation is due to various causes. In most cases it
is due to the fact that only about two-fifths of the
people in our larger cities live in their own houses.
In Greater New York only about 10 per cent. of the
families live in their own homes, while in the
Borough of Manhattan probably less than 3 per
cent. occupy dwellings owned by them.

Frequent moving in cities is also to be attrib-
uted to the influx of undesirable neighbors. The
settling of a considerable number of Jews in a cer-
tain neighborhood will result in the removal of other
nationalities; the migration of a number of Negroes
into a certain section of the city will cause the
whites to move elsewhere. Even the coming of cer-
tain linguistic groups, Italians, Poles, or Russians,
etc., will induce the removal of other groups.

But the removal of the members of a church to
great distances from the church will mean the
eventual loss of such members and will create a
problem upon whose solution the existence of the
church will often depend. Historic churches, once
attended by the most prominent native families in
other days, find themselves surrounded by old dwell-
ings, turned into tenements teeming with Italians,
Poles, and Russians. What was once a district
where the best families lived may in the course of
some years become a part of the slums of a city.

Once prosperous and pretentious churches in the
down-town sections of our large cities are not in-
frequently changed into factories, dancing-halls,
moyies, and the like. The inrush of Latin and
Slavic people causes the removal of the total mem-
bership of many a great church to another part of
the city.

In the past it has usually meant that not only
the members of these churches have gone elsewhere,
but also that the former church home was disposed
of in the manner indicated above, leaving the in-
coming new population without the spiritual in-
fluence formerly exerted upon the neighborhood by
its presence. However, in recent years not a few
denominations have come to, see the importance of
the continued functioning of these down-town

churches, even though the former membership has

EA

gone elsewhere. And the work which these down-
town churches are doing among the new population
is in many instances most successful and greatly
blessed by God.

Even if we but consider of what benefit these
churches are to the great number of transients, this
fact should encourage us not to abandon our down-
town churches in cities like New York, Philadel-
phia, Chicago, ete. Pastors of down-town churches
in these cities tell the writer that the number of
transients they are able to serve by their location
is very great and that their ministry to the young
men and women who are working in these cities and
living in down-town rooming-houses is of far greater
importance than most people think. By means of
these down-town churches a blessed work of conser-
yation is continuously being done.

Help Needed!

When existing congregations leave the .older
parts of cities to build new church homes in the
suburbs, they are generally able to finance their
venture. But in many.instances the new venture
needs the help of the Church at large. In such
cases the Home Mission and Church Extension
boards should gladly cooperate with the local. con-
gregation in providing them with a church plant
which will enable it to do effective work for the
Lord’s cause. It is an exceedingly short-sighted
policy to let a hundred members in a suburb erect
a church within their means when it is fully ap-
parent that the rapid growth of the suburb in ques-
tion justifies the building of a much larger church
and holds out the promise of the gathering of a self-
supporting congregation within a very short time.
It is sad to think of the many cases where the
meteoric growth of a new residential section threw
out a challenge too great for the small number of
local members to meet, and of the compulsory
failure of the Home Mission and Church Extension
boards to meet the challenge, because there were no
funds on hand adequately to assist the young con-
gregation in providing a church such as conditions
demanded. How many promising fields have been
lost to us just for this reason! How many city con-
gregations have remained small and are to-day
struggling for a mere existence, while they could
be large and flourishing, humanly speaking, if the
Church at large had given the proper help in the
early days of their history! Thousands of souls
are lost to our Church every year in our large in-
dustrial centers just because we are not at hand to
gather the ripe harvest that God is showing us!