The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1930, Page 168

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168 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

America, does not suffer any dearth of variety in
religious representation. In the sparsely populated
Ozark Region of Missouri and Arkansas, for
example, no less than seventy-three denominations
are represented, while rural Maine has forty-three.
Of course, in practically every case the greater por-
tion of the church-membership is found in a few
denominations. Roughly speaking, we may say that
in over forty States of the Union five or less denom-
inations have a majority of the Protestant churches,
and in half the States half of the Protestant church-
membership is to be found in three or even fewer
denominations. —

While, generally speaking, Protestant church-
membership has experienced a greater increase than
has the population of our country as a whole, there
are not a few neighborhoods and even whole counties
where the loss in church-membership has been
greater than the loss in population.

Surveys indicate that rural America, in general,
is well supplied with churches. In the United States
there is a church for about every 350 persons over
thirteen years of age; but in rural New England
there is a church for every 142 adult members; in
the East North Central States, for every 110; in
the West North Central States, for every 103. In
rural United States the average is less than 100.
The Lutheran Church has probably the largest rural
churches, though there are not a few cases where
a number of congregations could be consolidated
and thereby be put in a position to do more work. —

In rural communities, especially in the older
settled States, not a few abandoned churches are to
be found. These unused buildings are the result,
in some cases, of the union of several congregations,
_ in other cases of better transportation facilities and

the changing of church standards. Thus Iowa has
1,100 churches less: than it had twenty years ago.
While such States as Maine, New Hampshire, and
Ohio have increased in population, the number of
churches in these commonwealths has decreased ;
Maine, for example, to the extent of 200. Missouri
has had a 14-per-cent. decrease in churches; and in
the Ozark Region, comprising thirty counties in
Missouri and Arkansas, there are 280 unused church-
buildings to-day. In many cases, no doubt, in which
these churches were abandoned congregations were
dissolyed that the communities in which they existed
could not afford to lose, while by the consolidations
which resulted, in numerous instances, organizations
where strengthened that did not deserve it. The
knows of several cases in his own county

where the conservative and more orthodox congrega-
tions were dissolved, while the liberal organizations
continued to exist and to exert their less wholesome
influence in the community. It is an established fact
that in our own Synodical Conference the consolida-
tion of many contiguous parishes could be effected
without the loss of efficiency and at a saving of
money and man-power. Then, too, the consolidation
of smaller congregations into a larger parish might
in some cases make possible the founding of a parish-
school. Of course, we realize that the consolidation
of churches lying close together and even belonging
to the same general body is a most difficult task, due
to causes not always of a spiritual nature. Prej-
udices,. traditions, and personal matters, often of
a most trivial character, loom up big and assume an
important réle in not a few instances where a desir-
able consolidation of parishes is attempted. And yet
this task of adjustment of churches in their relation-
ship to each other by consolidating where distance,
language, and other weighty reasons do not forbid
it is of paramount importance for the sake of
efficiency, economy, and the like. Especially is this
the case where small subsidized churches come into
consideration. There is every indication that thou-
sands of dollars are turned away from real mis-
sionary channels just because small subsidized
churches that could be consolidated or else united
with larger independent parishes refuse to do so.
The attitude ‘of some small subsidized churches in
refusing to unite with other: churches imposes
a heavy, though unnecessary, financial burden upon
our Home Mission treasures and often prevents
expansion and the opening of new fields. We know
of instances where small subsidized congregations
have been more insistent and extravagant in their
demands for more efficient service than are congre-
gations that are financially independent.

In these days of good roads and fast automobiles
we are often keeping up separate subsidized church
plants without good reason. Why should it be neces-
sary to have plants for small dependent charges
only five or six miles apart? Why not have one plant
with a resident minister in a position to take ade-
quate care of the whole membership? Why a small
subsidized church with fifty communicant members
at one crossroad, three miles farther, in a village of
a hundred inhabitants, another plant of another
small church, and four or five miles from there
a third congregation equally small? Why could not
all three churches with an aggregate baptized mem-

‘bership of possibly 300 consolidate'and attend ser-