The Church on the Changing Frontier Part 11

But this "Mary" is a homesteader's wife and the Range is a long way from the Sands o' Dee, and "Mary" herself is usually a long way from anywhere.]

The Part of the Church

Finally, there is the duty of the Church. "The churches performed an inestimable social function in frontier expansion," says John Dewey. "They were the rallying points not only of respectability but of decency and order in the midst of a rough and turbulent population. They were the representatives of social neighborliness and all the higher interests of the communities." The Church has played an important role in the past, but its position in this same country to-day is disappointing. For some reason it has not become essential to the landscape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAITING AT THE CHURCH

A Christian Church in Union County which draws its congregation from a wide area.]

The immense distances and scattered population have, of course, been a great problem. All the country west of the Mississippi makes up 70.9 per cent. of the total area of the United States, while the western area has only 30 per cent. of the total population. In 1850, it had only 8.6 per cent. of the population. The average density per square mile in the United States is 35.5 persons. Illinois has 115.7 people per square mile, but Montana has an average density of only 3.8, Wyoming of 2, New Mexico of 2.9 and South Dakota of 8.3 persons.

Much of the Range has never had the chance to go to church, and one result of the lack of church facilities in the past is that it is difficult now to create a church spirit. Homesteading is no fun. It means being away from doctors and comforts, getting ahead little by little, facing set-backs, discouragements and loneliness. Of course, a homesteader is absorbed by his place. Unless he is simply proving up on his claim for the purpose of selling it, he must be absorbed if he is to succeed. He broke with most of his home ties before he came and, after arriving, has not had time to go adventuring for any but those simple things which he must have.

"Church" is one of the things he left behind. Church services have rarely followed him, and generally he has been too busy to seek them. Even if he were minded to hunt them out, it takes more than average courage to be "different" when one's neighbors are largely of a common mind. So the absence of church has become a habit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HITTING THE TRAIL

Will this settler find a church welcome in his new home?]

But probably the greatest hindrance to church work has been the s.h.i.+fting population. Churches have trained lay leaders only to have them leave "en ma.s.se." Out of the fourteen churches which have been abandoned in these four counties, nine have gone under because their members melted away.

The carrying over of the care-free frontier spirit often makes for a general slackness. This spirit has in it the freedom of the West, the perfect democracy of the cowboy, and is essentially individualistic. If directed into right channels, it should be an a.s.set instead of a drawback.

What the Frontier Church Is

Five sentences sum up the Church on the Range. It is a church of the center. It is, in the main, a church of the middle-aged. It has been a church with haphazard leaders.h.i.+p. It is a church of past achievements and of unlimited future possibilities, provided it has an inspired and sustained leaders.h.i.+p. It is a church which needs a social vision.

It is natural that, where the centers along the railroad have been the only "sure" things in a country of constantly s.h.i.+fting settlements, the largest number of churches have been established in such centers. But these churches have not reached the great unevangelized areas around them.

The "isolated, unattached Christian," who lives perhaps only a few miles from town, has been neglected by the church in the center.

It is natural, too, that this should be largely a church of the middle-aged. What is there to attract the young people? Many of the church organizations have no buildings. With few exceptions, buildings are equipped for little else but preaching and listening. Nearly half of the churches have less than four services a month. The Sunday schools are not well organized. With the start the Sunday schools now have, possibilities are unlimited if they can be conducted on a more business-like basis. Yet these young people and children are the great hope of the church. No more wide-awake, vigorous young people are to be found. "If only the Church could work out something that would last through the week," said one of them, "it would seem more real." But in many communities the women's organization is not only the sole organization in the church, outside the Sunday school, but the only one in the community.

The work has been haphazard. Home Mission aid has been spent out of all proportion to fitness. The same amount now received would go further, eventually, if spent in fewer places. With means and leaders adequate for a small area only, the general idea of some denominations has been to hold, but to do little with a large area. There has been some unnecessary over-lapping of work. With their large fields, the ministers cannot be expected to do more than they are doing at present which is, in most churches, occasional preaching. A missionary pastor said, concerning one of his charges in a neglected community in Union, "The second time I went to preach no one came. Do you think I'd go back?" Under the present system of many points and long distances, this pastor could hardly afford to use the time to go back. Yet, to succeed, church ministry must be steadier and more long-suffering.

There are some New Americans in each county, but they are in larger numbers in Sheridan and Beaverhead. A large number of the Spanish-Americans in Union are not provided for by the Catholic church, and the only Protestant work for them in the county, a Spanish American Mission in Clayton, has been given up. In Sheridan County there is great need of a comprehensive program that shall include all six mines. There should be at least two community houses built with organized social activities and evening cla.s.ses; the staff to include a domestic science teacher. With the exception of one cla.s.s for half a dozen Italian mothers in one of Sheridan's mining villages, no Americanization work is being done in any county. The churches should enlarge their vision so as to include the New Americans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FAMILY MANSION

With the family and the Union County doctor in front of it. The family is Spanish-American.]

What the Frontier Church Can Be

It is possible for the Church to serve this kind of country with its scattered people. It is difficult but it can be done. Certain denominations have succeeded with what they call a "demonstration parish."

The plan is exactly the same as that of the experimental farms conducted by the Government. A comprehensive seven-day-a-week plan, which has in mind the whole man, mind, body and soul, in place of the old circuit-rider system, is the program of the Congregational Demonstration Parish in Plateau Valley, Colorado. Six thousand feet up on the western slope of the Rockies, this valley is shut in on three sides by rugged, white-capped mountains. It is thirty miles long, from one to six miles wide, and contains about 150 square miles of territory. This is a small world in itself, self-contained by the nature of its environment. Of the 3,500 people, 750 live in the four small villages of Collbran, Plateau City, Melina and Mesa. The one great industry of the valley is stock-raising.

Farmers have devoted themselves chiefly to raising beef cattle, but an interest in dairying is increasing. Pure-bred stock is now the goal of their efforts.

This beautiful mountain valley was chosen as a "model parish" to show what could be done by the Church throughout a large, thinly settled area.

Although there were five church buildings in the valley, the church-going habit seemed to have been lost or never acquired, possibly because religious privileges had been meager and not altogether suited to the peculiar needs of the people and the country. It is doubtful if 250 people living in the valley were church members or attendants, while not more than 200 children went to Sunday school regularly. Few persons, however, were actually hostile toward religion or the Church. Here was the opportunity and the challenge.

The work centers in Collbran village, where there is a Congregational church organization and building. There are two men on the staff. The pastor has charge of the church school, the Christian Endeavor, and the work with men and young people in Collbran village. He also does visiting throughout the valley. The Director of Extension Work has the responsibility for establis.h.i.+ng and maintaining out-stations, financing the local budget, and supervising the activities and the building of the Community House.

This Community House is to be the center and great achievement of the modern socio-religious program. The completed building will have rooms and equipment for an ideal church school, kindergarten, game room, library, rest-room and men's club. The gymnasium will have a floor s.p.a.ce seventy-five by forty feet and a gallery; it will also serve as an auditorium, while a stage, dressing-rooms and a moving-picture booth form part of the equipment. The bas.e.m.e.nt will have billiard room, bowling alleys, lockers, baths, dining room and kitchen. The entire cost of the building will be approximately $25,000, to be financed in part by the Congregational Church Building Society and in part by local pledges. This is Home Mission aid well spent.

The first and second units were completed and opened for use on Christmas Day, 1921. The first unit is the auditorium. The second unit contains the library, a.s.sembly room, men's room, women's room, large billiard room and two offices which are to be used as headquarters for the boys' and girls'

organizations. The third unit will be completed in the summer of 1922. The pastor and extension man have office hours in the morning. In the afternoon, the women's rest room, with its easy chair, lounge and cribs for babies, and the men's club are open. The billiard and reading rooms are open from one to five-thirty and the library is open from three-thirty to five. This library already has 1,200 books, and there are shelves for 3,800 more. The library service is probably the most appreciated part of the work for it fills a long and sorely felt need. In the evening, the men's and women's rooms are open, and the reading room and billiard room are open from seven to nine. The privileges of the Community House are for each man, woman and child in the valley irrespective of church or creed.

So far as possible, everything enjoyed at the center is to be taken to the furthest circ.u.mference of the valley. The equipment for the extension work consists of a truck, auto, moving-picture machine and a generator. The community truck is used to furnish group transportation and to promote inter-neighborhood "mixing" in compet.i.tive and other ways. The Extension Director is organizer, social engineer and community builder. He has a regular circuit of preaching appointments and Sunday schools. His program includes a one-hour visit to four schools every week. Ten minutes are used for physical exercises, thirty minutes for public school music with the cooperation of the teacher and twenty minutes for religious education. He takes out library books and Sunday school papers to the teacher, and once a month shows educational moving-pictures.

The people are already responding to this constructive program. Within four months, the Collbran Church School has increased nearly 150 per cent.

in average daily attendance. The Christian Endeavor Society includes practically all the young people of the intermediate age. The Scouts and Camp Fire organizations are very active and recently held a dual meet with the Mesa organizations. Wrestling, basket-ball, hog-tying and three-legged races were some of the events. Within the year, thirty-seven members were added to the Collbran church, among whom were the leading lawyer, banker, doctor, contractor, editor, merchant and rancher.

The other two denominations in the valley, the Methodist Episcopal and Baptists, are cooperating in the effort. The small Methodist Episcopal church at Plateau City has come into the movement by arrangement with the Methodist Episcopal Conference, and has become part of the larger parish.

This church and community will unite with the Congregational church on a common budget for the support of general work. There is now Methodist Episcopal work in the extreme end of the valley, Baptist in the central part, and Congregational in the extreme west. Each church sticks to its own territory; each urges members of its own denomination to work with churches in other sections. But the larger parish equipment serves all in the extension program.

The work is only begun. The larger purpose is to break down distinctions between neighborhoods, as well as between village and country, and to weld all people living over a wide area into one large community with community spirit and a common loyalty. This cannot be done by the Church alone; doctors, visiting nurse, school teachers, county agent and farm bureau will gradually be called into a cooperative team play. This, then, is the Church not merely aspiring to leaders.h.i.+p, but utilizing its opportunity with a real program. Asking no favors because of its divine origin, it is determined to make itself a necessity in the community by virtue of what it does. It is the Church "actually practising a religion of fellows.h.i.+p, giving value for value and serving all the people and all of their interests, all of the time."

The Larger Parish Plan

This Larger Parish plan is the old circuit rider system brought up to date, and given an all-around significance through the use of modern means of transportation and an equipment suited to a religio-social program. The minister is no less a preacher and man of G.o.d because he is a community builder. His measure of "success" is his ability to work out with his people a genuine program of rural and social service.

With its community church and program, the Larger Parish plan seeks to make the church both a religious and a social center. Under its own roof, if necessary, or better, with an adjoining community house, it has equipment which provides for ideal wors.h.i.+p, a modern church school and well-supervised social and recreational activities. It amounts to a church that offers advantages like those of the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. By means of this program, the rural church puts itself at the center rather than at the far circ.u.mference of rural life, and becomes one of the most active agencies in the community.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A REAL COMMUNITY HOUSE

Members of this Presbyterian Church at Sheridan building their own community house under the leaders.h.i.+p of the pastor. The women of the church provided the eats.]

This plan remedies a characteristic disability of the average rural minister and his church--the neglect in farmstead visitation. Especially on the plains, isolation and loneliness persist despite modern improvements. There are country homes near to villages or towns into which no minister or church visitor goes from one year's end to another. Within reach of almost any church on the Range, and over great stretches of country, children may be found who are growing up without any religious training. In the face of this need and its challenge, the Larger Parish plan need not wait for people to come into the Church. By means of a well-equipped extension program the Church, and everything it stands for, is taken to all who need its ministrations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHURCH THAT SERVES THE COMMUNITY

The M. E. Church and parsonage at Clearmont, Wyoming.]

Preaching is essential. But when a minister and congregation can "brother"

scattered peoples, they are most helpful in bringing the Kingdom of G.o.d to rural America. There may be some justice in the excuse that "the farmer and his family might easily come in to services in their automobile," but it is true that a "house-going minister makes a church-going people." The Larger Parish plan furnishes the minister the equipment and help to do just this thing. It views the church as a service inst.i.tution.

The Montana Plan

It is even possible for a whole state to make a united plan for church work. Montana has had its area, community by community, county by county, or valley by valley, "allocated" to the religious care and undisputed responsibility of one or more denominations. For this new and progressive policy the people of the State were themselves responsible, and its development will be watched with intense interest. Unfortunately one of the fields in the only Montana county in this survey is not receiving the attention it should from its "allocated denomination." This is the work in the southern part of the county, now served by a non-resident pastor. A glance at the map will show how effectively the larger parish plan could be applied.

Two tasks face the churches in these counties: First, to increase and enlarge the work of the churches already established, and, secondly, to reach and serve the great unevangelized areas. The former is a problem for the individual church and community. The latter is a problem demanding the cooperation of all religious forces on the field, for "there is religious need enough to tax the best energies and resources of all." The churches in this new western country must keep pace with their rapidly changing environment, and with elastic yet inclusive programs really become community churches.

The county seat towns should a.s.sume more responsibility for their surrounding areas; in other words, they should plan and develop larger parishes. Especially in Beaverhead and Hughes, this area is unchurched and to a great extent neglected. While the social and economic life of these "centers" naturally overshadows a great portion of the county areas, yet the churches minister very inadequately to their needs. The church parishes on the map represent few members. The centers are growing, their influence is ever widening, so that the Church, in building up her work at the center with the idea not only of serving the people at hand but of reaching just as thoroughly the people in the surrounding areas, will naturally fulfill her destiny.