The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 30

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30

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

A Lutheran Suburban Church
on Long Island, N. Y.

Our Rural Communities as a Home Mission
Challenge. — Over fifty million people of our coun-
try are living in rural and small-town communities.
Contrary to the general belief that the people in
the rural communities are more religious than those
of the cities, let us state that, while 58 per cent. of
the cities’ population belongs to a Church, only
52 per cent. of our rural population does. The
writer lives in a county that has nine churches be-
longing to the Synodical Conference, seven con-
nected with the American Lutheran Church, and
three affiliated with the United Lutheran Church.
The membership of one Missouri Synod church just
outside the county is largely in the county, and the
members of another are in part living in the county.
Three congregations of the American Lutheran
Church situated in an adjoining county have like-
wise a large part of its members in our county.
And yet, with all these churches, a considerable part
of the northeast portion of our county is neglected
territory. In this neglected area there are at least
fifteen to twenty Lutheran families that must travel
as high as ten and twelve miles to church, and be-
sides these there are to the writer’s knowledge an
_ equal number who want to be called Lutherans and
“who would probably attend services if a church
' were within a shorter distance from their homes.

Home Missions and the Children. — Twenty-
seven million children and youth in our land are
growing up in spiritual illiteracy; 15,000,000
others have their religious instruction limited to
a half-hour a week. How many children of our
own Church belong to these 15,000,000? Tet us
never forget that Christian education is a Home
Missionary enterprise in the fullest and truest sense.
While recognizing the necessity and importance of
proclaiming the Gospel-message to the unevangel-
ized and spiritually neglected within our own bor-
ders, let us not lose:sight of the fact that our mis-
sionary task covers a wider scope. Let pastors and
members of our churches, and especially parents,
ever bear in mind that gathering children around
the family altar, teaching and training the young
in the one thing that is needful, is truly Home
Mission work. Indeed, the achievement of other
missionary tasks is impossible without the fulfil-
ment of our obligation to provide for the religious
education of children and youth. “A Church that
cannot save its own children can never save the
world.” When we hear that 15,000,000 children of
school age in the United States receive no religious
guidance whatever and that 35,000,000 over ten
years of age are without membership in any Church,
we must at once see the crying need of Home Mis-
sion work among the children and youth.

Another Home Mission Item. — In our Western
States are large areas, comprising entire commu-
nities and parts of counties which are unchurched.
In one Western State sixteen counties were found
where a large portion of the people have no regular
church service at all. In these sixteen counties
there are forty-two entire communities which have
no church services and no Sunday-school; sixty
other communities have church-buildings, but no
regular resident pastors. Of course, it is not only
in the West where these conditions obtain. Every
State in the Union has thousands of children not
enrolled in any Sunday-school and receiving no
formal religious teaching; and every State has
greater or smaller areas where no church facilities
are to be found.

Home Mission Needs in Kansas. — We take the
following from the December issue of the Kansas
LIntheran. What Pastor Hornbostel, the chairman
of the Kansas District Home Missions Board, says
of conditions in his District might very probably
in a greater or less degree be said of conditions in
every one of our Districts in the Synodical Con-
ference : —

“The latest available statistics tell us that our