The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 90

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90

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

to cultivate the entire area of the inhabited land and
until every household is understood to be a part of
the responsibility of some church.
We have too many “birthright-member”
churches, that is, churches that think they are only
. there to serve those who are born within the church.
Then, we have many churches who seem to think
they are called to serve only certain classes and
types of people, while the ideal church should strive
to serve all elements in the neighborhood and people
in every station of life. A church is not doing its
full duty just because it wins and holds enough
people to support it. A church should go outside its
membership and try to bring all it possibly can into
its fold. If we should only a little oftener compare
what we actually have with what we might have
if we earnestly went after it, we possibly would not
be as contented as we are. Not the members we have
should be the measure of our success, but the num-
ber we have compared with the number of those who
are still without. If we were to think a little more
of the unchurched in our church communities who
are still outside the fold, we probably, like the Good
Shepherd, would show more concern for the sheep
not in the fold and go to seek them.

Another Thing to Consider.

Then, too, the country churches would do well
to consider the question whether their program is as
full as it should be. Is a service on Sunday or a
service every two weeks and a makeshift Sunday-
school enough to keep a church alive and satisfy the
wants of our people. In these days, when there is
so much to detract the people from things spiritual,
should not the church try to establish more contact
with its members than only once a week? Could
not the program of our rural churches be made
richer by the introduction of week-day Bible classes,
the establishment of young people’s societies, and
the like? We by no means wish to be understood
as though we were champions of the so-called social
gospel, but we do feel that every church should con-
cern itself most seriously with the question “How
can we most profitably serve the advancement of
Christ’s kingdom in this community? What can
we legitimately do that we have not yet done to
bring in those that are without?” If this were done
in all seriousness by our country-church members,
we should not find that in a certain State less than
thirty-five per cent. of the rural population are
church-members and less than thirty-five per cent.
go to Sunday-school.

The financial support of the rural church is, as

a rule, very inadequate. Of course, this is partly
due to the present low value of farm products. But
the average contribution of the country member
always has been lower than that of the town mem-
ber. In a certain large section of our country the
average contribution of rural members a few years
ago was $11.66, while the urban members contri-
buted an average of $25.33 a year.

The Young People.

To hold young people with the Church is a
problem in town and country, but it becomes the
more serious for the country church because of the
drift of the young people to the cities and the an-
nual exodus of many others to college. In both
cases the Church is losing very valuable members
and possibly some promising future leaders. It is
estimated that in rural Virginia less than twenty
per cent. of the young people between the ages of
sixteen and twenty-four are being reached by the
Church and its organizations. That is one of the
great complaints of the Church to-day, that it can-
not reach the young people. “What is the matter
with our young people?” is the question heard on
every side. And it is indeed a serious question.
But isn’t the trouble in a considerable measure to be
found in the parents and the churches? We fully
realize that the Gospel should attract our young
country people to their church just as it did their
fathers; but we cannot deny the fact that many of
our boys and girls are not attracted in such numbers
as they should be. And we shall only be doing the
wise thing if we seek for the cause of the condition
that confronts us. For one thing, when we older
ones were boys and girls, our country congregations
in most instances were isolated colonies, social
islands. These colonies supplied not only our re-
ligious needs, but likewise our social wants; they
were for us our religious and social centers. They
were generally also our educational centers. But it
is not so to-day. If not before confirmation, then —
at least afterwards other institutions and organiza-
tions step in’ to supply, at least in part, the social
and educational wants of our youth. Our young
people may continue to live in the country, but their
thoughts, their social and educational ideas, have
become urbanized to a great extent. They dress and
act like town people; they read the same daily
papers, make use of the same library, and subscribe
for the same magazines. ‘They go to the same school
and listen to the same radio as the town youth. We
cannot be surprised’to find that our young people,
after attending a fine, modern, consolidated, well-