is to bring people into the kingdom of God. All social and community work
must be subordinate to this and lead up to it. The Church must be
something more than a social settlement. I still hold to the old-fashioned
idea that men need to be saved, and that the only salvation that there
can be for them is found in loyalty to Jesus Christ. While this salvation
is a matter of the spirit, affecting one's standing with God and his
relation to the great eternal realities, it also affects his standing with
men and his relation to society. And here comes in all the humanitarian
and community work that is a legitimate and important part of the church's
concern. Community work can never take the place of the work of God's
Spirit in the individual life. To be permanently valuable it must be the
_result_ of that work. The kingdom of God embraces the complete ideal, and
if we can induce men to live according to the principles of that kingdom,
careful attention will be paid to all the work that needs to be done for
the community. Therefore the work of the Larger Parish is primarily,
though not exclusively, evangelistic. We are trying to lead men to become
Christians, not in a narrow sense, but in the large, rich meaning of that
word which the teaching of Jesus gives it.
During the three years that we have in review there have been some such
results. A goodly number have decided to begin the Christian life and have
taken their places in the ranks of the followers of Jesus Christ. We are
thankful that the army of the Lord has received so many new recruits. But
there are many more who are not as yet willing to enlist. The number of
those who are still outside the ranks is greater than of those who are
marching under the banner of the visible Church. Much remains to be done
in this direction. The work is far from being complete in this its most
vital and important aspect. We have only made a beginning. It will not be
finished until every person in all the wide parish is openly and
positively arrayed on the side of Christ. At the present rate of progress
it looks as if the Church had work laid out for it for a long time to
come. It is not in danger of soon running out of material. There is a
great work yet to be done in the way of bringing men into the kingdom of
God. We hope to keep that always in view--to make it our central aim and
our uppermost thought.
2. There needs to be created in the hearts of the people more respect for
the Church, a better understanding of its mission, and a fuller
appreciation of its work. Many people have mistaken ideas of the Church,
and therefore fail to appreciate its work or its purpose. Some regard it
simply as a venerable institution that has long had a place in human
society. In former times it has done an important work, and still has its
value. It is to be honored for its record and still encouraged in a mild
and patronizing way. They would not banish the Church--they are not yet
quite ready to undertake to conduct human society without it. They
tolerate it and perhaps support it in a half-hearted way, but they do not
regard it as absolutely essential or its work as vitally important. They
do not understand the Church. The Church may be in some measure to blame
for this. It has not always understood itself. Its conception of its own
mission has been small, narrow, and inadequate, and it was inevitable that
no truer or larger impression could be made upon the community. When the
Church undertakes to do all for which it is responsible and prosecutes it
with the vigor and earnestness that it deserves, the people will begin to
understand it better and to appreciate more fully its mission.
Many people regard the Church as an institution to be supported. In common
thought this institution, for some reason that may not always appear, has
assumed the right to lay the community under tribute for support. Some
accept this traditional idea without thinking much about it, while others
are in revolt against it. One of the assistant pastors was calling at a
house for the first time. The master of the house, when he was introduced,
said, "Oh, another preacher! Well, I suppose they all have to be
supported." And he was not the first representative of the Church that has
met with such an indignity.
Here again the Church may be at least partially to blame. It has too often
regarded its office as that of preying upon the community as well as
praying for it. It has not always been careful to give value received.
It is our purpose to make the Church a necessity in the community. Its
good works, its efficiency as an element of power in everything that is
for the improvement and uplifting of the people, should be so great and so
evident that no one can reasonably call them in question. That is one of
the things that needs to be done, and that by the method of the Larger
Parish we hope to accomplish. We propose that the Church shall have such a
spirit of helpfulness, that it shall be so wise and practical in laying
out its work, so energetic and aggressive in prosecuting it, that all
shall recognize it as a potent and most blessed force--an institution that
they gladly support because of its practical value. Some progress has been
made in this direction. The Church has gained immensely in the respect of
the people since it began the work of the Larger Parish. The people can
see that it is really doing something.
3. There needs to be created a stronger and more universal community
spirit. The tendency in the country toward isolation and independence is
especially strong. Each farmer is separate from every other. He lives
alone, somewhat like a baron in his castle in old feudal times,
sufficient for himself, without much necessity of borrowing, or thought of
lending. Living in such conditions it is quite natural that he should grow
selfish, and should come to think largely if not exclusively of his own
individual interests. He is in danger of overlooking the fact that society
is an organism, and he is a part of it; that he has duties and obligations
to the general public; that his life cannot be complete if it is lived
alone; that he owes something to the community at large, and that he must
get something from it if he would really be a man, do a man's work, and
fill a man's place. He must come to see that the public good means private
advantage, and that when he cuts himself off from others and thinks only
of his own individual interests he is following a foolish and suicidal
policy.
[Illustration: THE BENZONIA CHURCH]
This community spirit needs to be carefully cultivated, and that work has
been going on in the Larger Parish. The community spirit has been growing.
The people are more interested in one another and in those things that are
undertaken for the public good than they formerly were. But there is still
much to be done in this respect. Not all the people are yet able to look
over the narrow boundaries of their own possessions and see their
neighbors' needs. Not all grasp the idea of the solidarity of society. But
this spirit is growing and there will be larger fruitage in the coming
days.
4. There needs to be more team work among the people, more cooperation in
carrying out the schemes that are for the public good. When all the people
take hold together, there is scarcely anything that needs to be done that
cannot be accomplished. A single individual is comparatively powerless,
but a common movement in any community is bound to succeed. One of the
foremost services to any community is to unite its forces and bring the
people to work together heartily and enthusiastically in some good cause.
The work of the Larger Parish has been useful in this direction. The Team
Work Committees of the neighborhood clubs have this for their object--to
lead out in anything in which it is desirable for the people to move
together. It is easier to bring the people to unite their efforts now than
it was three years ago, but much more remains to be done. The goal has not
yet been reached. The effective team work that we have seen is a prophecy
of that completer cooperation in all good things that we hope and expect
to see in the coming days.
5. In some way more variety should be brought into the lives of country
people. Farm life should become one of the most attractive and interesting
spheres of activity. Its freedom, its independence, its close contact
with nature, should give to it for multitudes a compelling charm. It would
seem that a strong current of human interest could be made to flow from
the crowded and unwholesome conditions of the city to the open country,
where the fresh breezes play and the flowers bloom. At present it is not
so. The stream flows in the opposite direction and every year the city
swallows up much of the best blood of the country. It is the city that
attracts, and the country that repels. This can be explained very largely
by the isolated and monotonous character of country life.
The only way by which this movement can be checked or reversed is to give
more variety to rural life; to break up its monotony and to introduce into
it those intellectual and social pleasures and employments that are a
necessary part of a healthful and contented life. Young people crave
variety, they must get together, they must have some kind of amusements,
some form of recreation. If they cannot find it on the farm, they will go
to the city where it is supplied in lavish abundance but often in
objectionable forms.
It has been the object of the work of the Larger Parish to supply this
need of country life. It has provided and promoted frequent opportunities
for the people to come together in a social way. The Sunday services
established in so many places have not only served as opportunities of
worship, but also of neighborly intercourse and of the interchange of
friendly greetings. The neighborhood clubs have been a kind of social and
literary clearing-house for the community, affording many a pleasant and
profitable evening and providing something wholesome to think of and to
plan for during the day. The Ladies' Aid Societies have brought the women
together, in projects and accomplishments of common interest, relieving
the weeks of monotonous toil with forms of cooperative fellowship. Much
more needs to be done to impart interest and attraction to life in the
country, and it is something to which the Church, in its desire to
minister to the whole man, may very appropriately give its thought and
effort.
6. Machinery seems to be a necessity in all kinds of work. Nothing can be
done without a method, an organization, a machine--some kind of an
instrument to facilitate the process. But the machine is never properly an
end in itself. Sometimes it is made an end, but no farmer could be
satisfied with a reaper that did not cut the grain, however beautiful and
well-made it might be or however smoothly it might run. Nevertheless some
churches seem to be satisfied with the smooth running of the machinery,
even though the results of it all are very meager.
The primary object of the work of the Larger Parish is to help the people
and to serve them in a religious and social way, not to promote a
denomination, to build up a church, to perfect an organization, or to
construct or to operate machinery of any kind. But in order to help the
people and serve their best interests efficiently, some machinery, some
organization, is necessary. Our thought is to supply it when the necessity
comes, but not before. When it is needed it must be invented or
discovered, or in some way brought into the service. Certain methods have
been introduced. There have been employed some forms of organization, some
machinery has been set in operation. Some things we have tried, that did
not work satisfactorily and they had to be discarded. Some of the methods
that seem to be successful at present may not always continue to work so
well, and they will have to be exchanged for others. We must ever keep in
view the prime object for which we are working--to serve the people and
to uplift the community life--and to that object we must adapt our methods
and adjust our machinery.
If we do the work that needs to be done in the coming days we shall need a
true and unwavering purpose, a clear eye to discern the situation, a calm
and correct judgment to fit the method to the work, and above all, the
constant leading of the Holy Spirit. The Larger Parish is not a method, or
organization, or machine, that one can secure and put in operation and
then the work is done. It is a vision--an ideal--that must be a living
reality in the soul, and then must be wrought out in actual life in the
best way possible.
VII
SOME RESULTANT CONCLUSIONS
This story began with "Some Convictions." It ends with "Some Conclusions."
There has been an attempt to tell how a vision became a reality. The
vision originated in convictions. The conclusions have come from the
realization of the vision.
There are a few things that may be stated with confidence as the result of
the three years' work in translating the vision into the fact of the
Larger Parish. The mention of some of them will round out the story.
1. The village church, if it would do its proper work, must belong to the
people and be in close touch with them. It must minister in some way to
all the people and be a force in the life of all the people. Churches
like individuals are known to have certain characteristics, to possess
certain temperaments. Some are aristocratic and exclusive. They gather to
themselves a number of select families who have common tastes and are
congenial with one another. They have good times together, and within that
narrow circle there is a delightful social life. Those few people are well
trained, and well instructed in the facts and principles of religion as
they are understood by them. But they do not seem to get hold of the idea
that the church is for all the people; that as Jesus conceived it it is
essentially democratic. They have no sense of obligation for the community
at large, and make no effort to affect it as a whole and to lift it up to
a higher level.
The village church that would do its work must be democratic and must have
a community consciousness. It must belong to the people--be in close
touch with those of each and every class.
2. The village church, if it would do its proper work, must recognize its
obligation to minister in some way to the religious and social needs of
the people in the outlying country districts. The village should not be
its parish, but rather its base of operations, from which it goes forth to
all the wide-stretching territory that lies beyond.
3. The church which has this vision, which recognizes this obligation and
seeks to discharge it, will find some way of doing it. The work within the
towns and villages is often great and difficult. Many churches have failed
to reach all the people within the sound of their church-bell, and there
is much work at their very doors that they have not yet accomplished.
Shall they reach out and extend their parish threefold, and multiply their
duties and obligations many times? If they do not do all that ought to be
done in their smaller parish, shall they increase its boundaries and
assume greater obligations? Yes. That is what many churches are
languishing for--a bigger job, something that it is worth while to do;
something that will challenge all their powers and awaken to enthusiasm
their sleeping energies.
4. The only village church that will continue to abide in strength and
vigor in the future years will be the church that is all buttressed about
by a strong and vigorous country work. It must be done as a means of
self-preservation. The village churches are as much in danger of losing
their lives as the country churches are. The church that confines its
efforts within the village boundaries is sure to languish and dwindle and
after a while it will give up the ghost, as it ought to do. As the city is
fed from the towns and villages, so the towns and villages are fed from
the country. If the work goes down in the towns and villages, it will be
felt in the city, and if it loses its hold in the country, it will soon
lose its grip upon the villages and towns. The country needs the work of
the Larger Parish, and it will perish without it. But the village church
needs to do the work even more, and unless it takes it up with vigor it is
doomed.
5. When the churches come to be more interested in the promotion of the
Kingdom than they are in the promotion of their own particular
denomination, they will begin to have that prosperity which only those can
have who are really doing the Lord's work. The chief hindrance to the work
of the churches is often the churches themselves. One of the greatest
needs of the villages and rural regions is fewer churches.
If in each small village there was a single church in which all the
Christians of the community could unite, they could easily organize the
work in all the surrounding country and carry it on successfully. But
where there are a number of churches they are in the way of each other and
effectually prevent any widespread and efficient work. Still, even in that
unfortunate condition, something may be done in a systematic way to help
the rural regions. Why cannot the representatives of the various churches
get together, make a united survey of the country for miles in every
direction, become fully acquainted with the situation and conditions, and
seeing clearly what needs to be done, divide the territory up between
them, giving each church its own particular field, and allowing it to
arrange for its cultivation in its own way? I believe that some such
arrangement is feasible when it is the Kingdom that the churches are
chiefly interested to promote, instead of the particular denomination to
which they happen to belong.
6. When all the religious forces in any community can combine and work
together, all the work that needs to be done in the community can be done,
and there will be no lack of resources to carry it on with vigor and
success. In almost every community there are Christians enough, and there
is money enough, for the work, if only they can be assembled and utilized.
But when they are scattered about, lying around lose and uncombined, or
when they are organized into competing camps, they are useless for any
purpose of aggressive and effective work. It isn't the poverty of the
people that stands in the way, or the small number of professing
Christians. It is the lack of team work, the lack of cooperation, that
constitutes the weakness of the cause. No work can be done in the country
that is at all effective without this cooperation and combination. With
it, all the work that needs to be done, can be done.
7. The church that sees the vision and with faith and courage undertakes
to make it a reality, will be prospered. Perhaps the experience of the
Benzonia church may be cited as proof of this. Situated in a small
village, composed of people of meager means, in a country that has not
even yet emerged from pioneer conditions, it had for many years carried on
its work only with much sacrifice and careful economy. Three years ago, by
a unanimous vote, it formally adopted the policy of reaching out and
annexing all the territory within a radius of five miles in every
direction, thus greatly increasing its obligations and more than doubling
its annual budget of expenses. There was some questioning as to how it
could be done, but, without waiting for clearer light, it moved forward
unanimously to the enlarged work.
What do we find to be the result of the three years? They have been the
three most prosperous years of the church's history. Two men have been
added to the clerical force. The expenses of the church have been met, and
the bills have been paid when they were due. The contributions for home
and foreign missions have more than doubled. More members have been
received than during any other similar period. There has been perfect
harmony and the people have been glad and happy in their common work. Ten
places of worship have been established in the country around where
regular services are held. The people in these neighborhoods attend their
own services and do not come into the village church as some of them
formerly did. The present arrangement does not tend to build up a large
central congregation, but has the opposite effect. Thirty former central
members have become part of a newly formed church three miles away. There
has been no great increase in the population, either of the village or of
the country around. But the congregations and the Sunday-schools were
never so large as they have been during this period. It has been found
impossible to accommodate all those who wished to worship with the church,
or properly to care for those attending the Sunday-school. A larger
building became an actual necessity, and in the summer of 1913 an addition
was made, increasing the seating capacity of the building by one third,
and providing a number of rooms for Sunday-school and social purpose. Can
we doubt that the blessing of God will attend any church that sees the
vision, and with faith and courage and sacrifice gives itself to the work
of making it a reality?
8. When all the ministers and all the churches catch the vision of the
Larger Parish and address themselves to the work of making it a reality,
the rural regions will be rehabilitated, religiously, morally, and
socially, and a splendid impulse will be given to the work throughout the
whole country. If some practical plan can be adopted by the village
churches for extension work, the whole aspect of the country situation may
be quickly changed. The people, both in the villages and in the open
country, are more ready for some such movement than has been supposed.
Would not the Larger Parish idea as set forth in this story furnish a good
working plan for such a movement?
No man can have very much enthusiasm in a task that does not challenge all
his powers and bring them into action--neither can a church. With the
village churches it is a case of self-preservation as well as outreaching
service. They must do this work or die. They will not long survive the
spiritual declension of the country. The country and the village stand or
fall together. Their fortunes are united. They must help each other up
into a better life or they will sink into a like economic, social, and
spiritual stagnation and death. The plan of the wider parish, or some
better plan, if it is wisely and vigorously worked, will secure both to
the village and the country communities their rightful heritage of
spiritual and social strength and usefulness.
9. Nearly all the Christian denominations have their home missionary
boards or societies whose functions it is to help sustain gospel work in
needy places and to organize and cherish churches on the frontier and in
destitute places. The frontier lines are not so extensive as they once
were, but the desolate places are almost as numerous as ever, and they are
in the very heart of our most highly developed civilization. In fact, they
lie all about our churches, often almost within the sound of the
church-bell. It is often too expensive to sustain a minister and maintain
regular services in all these places and so they are left without gospel
privileges. If they can be grouped about a village church as a center, and
if the church can be the base of operations from which the work is carried
on in all these outlying regions; if through the aid of the home
missionary boards a sufficient clerical force can be maintained to carry
on the wide work, will not such a course be a practical, a successful, and
an economical method of accomplishing home mission work?