The Church on the Changing Frontier Part 12

To reach areas outside the influence of the church work at the centers, colporteurs should be employed. A Sunday school missionary could give permanence to all Sunday school work and help to organize new schools in Union and possibly in Sheridan County. Some additional churches should be established; others might very well be closed. But it is chiefly up-to-date, educated, resident pastors that are needed, with a belief that the rural task is worth their lives.

Cooperation the Solution

The psychological and religious differences in these four counties have already been shown. All should not be treated alike. Every county is different. Every county demands individual study and treatment. Such conditions call for the survey method and for intensive cooperation. This is the key to the whole situation. Business, though still compet.i.tive and on an individual basis, combines for the community good, as in the case of Rotary and Civic Clubs. The churches might well emulate this example in organization. There are competent Ministerial Unions in Pierre and Sheridan City. What is needed now is a Council of Religion in each county with a program enlisting every minister and every church, and including every square mile of occupied land in the county. All problems are related. The causes of church ineffectiveness lie in non-cooperation.

Ministers have stayed too short a time to relate themselves to their parish and their people; denominations in establis.h.i.+ng new churches have not been curious enough about the lay of the land; the various component parts have been unrelated--the preacher to the church, the fringe areas to the church in the center and, finally, the Church to the people.

The Frontier of the Future

Yesterday the Range population was busy settling down. To-day it is haphazardly here, and still coming. And what of to-morrow? Franklin K.

Lane wrote at the end of his term of service in the Department of the Interior: "We are quickly pa.s.sing out of the rough-and-ready period of our national life, in which we have dealt wholesale with men and things, into a period of more intensive development in which we must seek to find the special qualities of the individual unit whether that unit be an acre of desert, a barrel of oil, a mountain canyon, the flow of a river, or the capacity of the humblest of men." Here is fertile ground for well directed and progressive development.

The East is crystallized into its habits and customs. The West is more plastic because it is in the social making, and is willing, at need, to change its ways. The social baggage of the eastern states is only partly unpacked in this region. The young West is developing a flexible social and inst.i.tutional life in keeping with its phenomena of time and place.

Great possibilities are ahead. A real welding process has begun during the last few years as the population tends to become more static, or as it learns to cooperate in such agencies as Red Cross work during the war and the work of the Farm Bureau. A new social spirit is developing. The Church has counted for a great deal on the Range and has done some good, fundamental work. But in order to keep abreast of the new development and to help bring to the Range a "satisfying community life which is profitable, sociable, healthful and full of culture and charm and, above all, full of G.o.d," the Church must make its ministry broader, steadier and more available.

APPENDICES

I: METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS

II: TABLES

APPENDIX I

Methodology and Definitions

The method used in the Town and Country Surveys of the Interchurch World Movement and of the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys differs from the method of earlier surveys in this field chiefly in the following particulars:

1. "Rural" was defined as including all population living outside incorporated places of over 5,000. Previous surveys usually excluded all places of 2,500 population or over, which follows the United States Census definition of "rural."

2. The local unit for the a.s.sembling of material was the community, regarded, usually, as the trade area of a town or village center. Previous surveys usually took the minor civil division as the local unit. The disadvantage of the community unit is that census and other statistical data are seldom available on that basis, thus increasing both the labor involved and the possibility of error. The great advantage is that it presents its results a.s.sembled on the basis of units which have real social significance, which the minor civil division seldom has. This advantage is considered as more than compensating for the disadvantage.

3. The actual service area of each church as indicated by the residences of its members and adherents was mapped and studied. This was an entirely new departure in rural surveys.

Four chief processes were involved in the actual field work of these surveys:

1. The determination of the community units and of any subsidiary neighborhood units included within them. The community boundaries were ascertained by noting the location of the last family on each road leading out from a given center who regularly traded at that center. These points, indicated on a map, were connected with each other by straight lines. The area about the given center thus enclosed was regarded as the community.

2. The study of the economic, social and inst.i.tutional life of each community as thus defined.

3. The location of each church in the county, the determination of its parish area, and the detailed study of its equipment, finance, members.h.i.+p, organization, program and leaders.h.i.+p.

4. The preparation of a map showing, in addition to the usual physical features, the boundaries of each community, the location, parish area and circuit connections of each church, and the residence of each minister.

The following are the more important definitions used in the making of these surveys and the preparation of the reports:

GEOGRAPHICAL

_City_--A center of over 5,000 population. Not included within the scope of these surveys except as specifically noted.

_Town_--A center with a population of from 2,501 to 5,000.

_Village_--A center with a population of from 251 to 2,500.

_Hamlet_--Any cl.u.s.tered group of people not living on farms whose numbers do not exceed 250.

_Open Country_--The farming area, excluding hamlets and other centers.

_Country_--Used in a three-fold division of population included in scope of survey into Town, Village and Country. Includes Hamlets and Open Country.

_Town and Country_--The whole area covered by these surveys, i.e., all population living outside cities.

_Rural_--Used interchangeably with Town and Country.

_Community_--That unit of territory and of population characterized by common social and economic interests and experiences; an "aggregation of people the majority of whose interests have a common center." Usually ascertained by determining the normal trade area of each given center. The primary social grouping of sufficient size and diversity of interests to be practically self-sufficing in ordinary affairs of business, civil and social life.

_Neutral Territory_--Any area not definitely included within the area of one community. Usually an area between two or more centers, and somewhat influenced by each, but whose interests are so scattered that it cannot definitely be a.s.signed to the sphere of influence of any one center.

_Neighborhood_--A recognizable social grouping having certain interests in common, but dependent for certain elemental needs upon some adjacent center within the community area of which it is located.

_Rural Industrial_--Pertaining to any industry other than farming within the Town and Country area.

POPULATION

_Foreigner_--Refers to foreign-born and native-born of foreign parentage.

_New Americans_--Usually includes foreign-born and native-born of foreign or mixed parentage, but sometimes refers only to more recent immigration.

In each case the exact meaning is clear from the context.

THE CHURCH

_Parish_--The area within which the members and regular attendants of a given church live.

_Circuit_--Two or more churches combined under the direction of one minister.

_Resident Pastor_--A church whose minister lives within its parish area is said to have a resident pastor.