The Preachers' Goings and Comings
This is a field that challenges a preacher. The love of a new world has
drawn his potential flocks and with them a pastor may come to new pastures
where the satisfaction of creative pioneer work is not its least
attraction. Settlements have grown up almost over night. People have come
from all over the East, Middle West and Southwest. Many families live far
from their neighbors. Leadership is the challenging need and it is
primarily the task of the Church to furnish and develop it. The initial
handicap is that here people, from a matter of habit, do not yearn for
church ministry as they do in other parts of the country. Their traditions
do not include it. It is the preacher who must "sell" the idea of religion
and the Church. No one else will do it. He must be a "builder of something
out of nothing--a pioneer of the Gospel, creator as well as evangelist."
The Vagrant Minister
One of the most startling facts brought out by this survey is the degree
to which the ministers have been transient. Always a detriment to
effective work, this lack of permanency is especially unfortunate in a
country of such rapid growth and so transient a population. It takes more
than average time to win people's confidence because they do not accept
the Church _per se_. There are problems enough to be met when a preacher
"hog-ties," as the Western slang puts it, meaning when he stays on the
job. But the preachers have come and gone along with the rest. Three of
the forty-five churches organized for ten years or more have had the same
preacher throughout the period, and five more churches have had only two
pastors. But seven churches have changed pastors three times, ten have
changed four, seven have changed five, six have changed six, five have
changed seven, one has changed eight and one has changed nine times during
this period. About half of the country and village churches, 38 per cent.
of the town, and one-fourth of the city churches have had five or more
pastors during the last ten years. Of the churches organized within the
last ten years, ten have had one pastor, eight have had two, one has had
three, three have had four, one has had six, one has had seven and two
have had no regular pastors during the entire time. These men have indeed
had the spirit of wanderlust. They have scarcely stayed long enough to get
acquainted with their task.
[Illustration: CHART VIII]
Lapses between pastors are revealed. The changing has meant loss of time
to three-fourths of the churches. Thus, of the group of churches organized
ten years or more, city churches have been vacant 2.5 per cent. of the ten
years, town churches 6 per cent. of the time, village churches 11 per
cent. and country churches 17 per cent. of the time. The churches
organized in the last ten years, of which the majority are in small
hamlets and the open country, have been vacant 20 per cent. of the time.
Again the churches in the larger centers fare better.
Distribution of Pastors
The churches in the four counties are at present being served by forty
ministers who have been a long time in church service, but only a short
time in their present fields. Their average length of time in their
present charge is only two and one-third years. Twelve of the forty-one
present pastors have been in their parishes less than a year, and fourteen
more have been serving from one to two years inclusive. Thirty-two
ministers give their entire time to the ministry. Eight have some other
occupation in addition to their church work. One is a student, and the
rest are ranchers. These eight men serve eleven churches in the four
counties and eight churches outside. Thirteen churches were without
regular pastors at the time of the survey, but five churches were only
temporarily pastorless--transiency caught in the act! Four of the thirteen
were being supplied by local or travelling preachers, one a woman
homesteader. The remaining fifty-seven churches, therefore, were being
served by forty regular ministers, and two resident social workers who
take care of a Baptist Mission at a mining village in Sheridan County. The
regular ministers also serve twenty churches in other counties, making a
total of seventy-seven churches, or 1.87 churches per man. This is a
slightly lower proportion of ministers per church than the region
averages.
How the ministers are divided up so that they will go around is shown in
the following table. The sixteen preaching points and missions which these
same men also serve are not included because in general they do not take
the same amount of time as a regular church.[8]
Preachers with No Other Preachers with
Occupation Other Occupation
Serving one church 18 (B-3, H-5, S-8, U-2) 3 (H-2, U-1)
Serving two churches 9 (B-1, H-3, S-2, U-3) 1 (..., U-1)
Serving three churches 3 (..., H-1, S-1, U-1) 2 (..., U-2)
Serving four churches 2 (..., U-2)
Serving five churches 2 (...............U-2)
-- --
Total 32 8
The denominational basis of church organization, as a preceding chapter
shows, leads to an uneven distribution of churches and ministers. If it
were not for denominational lines, it would be possible to make a better
distribution of the ministers so as to give a larger proportion of the
communities a resident minister. The centers have an abundance of
ministers, but outside the centers there are too few. Thus, thirty-three
of the churches have resident preachers, but twenty-two, or _two-thirds_,
of these churches are located in centers which have other resident
ministers. More than half of the churches with resident pastors are town
or city churches. Only _nine_ communities have one or more resident
ministers serving a single church on full time. One of these communities
is the city, three are the towns, one is a village community in
Beaverhead, one the mining town with the two social workers, and three are
country communities. Only eighteen communities have such full-time
resident pastors. Ten other churches have pastors living adjacent to their
buildings, but in each case the pastor also serves other churches, or has
other occupation. Fourteen churches have pastors living from five to
eighteen miles distant, four have ministers living from eighteen to
thirty-five miles distant. One has its pastor living fifty miles away, one
sixty-five and one 120 miles. Four pastors live outside their counties.
[Illustration: CHART IX]
An adequate parsonage is one means of keeping a resident pastor. About
half of the churches have parsonages. Of the forty churches with
buildings, thirty-four have parsonages and one country pastor has a
parsonage and no church building. Three parsonages were not being used at
the time of the survey.
The residence of pastors and the distribution of pastoral service have a
clear relation to growth. The pastor is ordinarily responsible for the
evangelistic success of the church. If a pastor is non-resident or has too
large a territory to serve, his personal contribution is lessened. Of the
churches having resident pastors, two-thirds made a net gain. Of those
with non-resident pastors, only one-third gained.
Pastors' Salaries.
The question of ministers' salaries is important. Inadequate salaries have
undoubtedly caused some of the restlessness among the ministry. Salaries
vary as the minister is on full or on part time, as shown in the following
table. The full-time one-church man commands a wage higher than the man
with more churches, or the man with another occupation.
[Illustration: A PARSONAGE BUT NO CHURCH
The M. E. pastor shown here with his wife and baby has a house but no
church building on his circuit. He preaches in three school houses.]
Minister
Full Time with Other
Full Time Part Time Minister Occupation
Minister Minister with More and More
with One with One Than One Than One
Church Church Church Church
Maximum salary $2,650 $1,550 $3,250 $1,900
Minimum salary 600 840 880 100
Average 1,835 1,195 1,507 610
These average salary figures may be compared with the average salary of
the Y. M. C. A. county secretaries for the entire United States which was
$2,265 in 1920.
Training of Ministers
Standards of the various denominations as to the educational
qualifications of the ministers vary. Eighteen of the forty-one pastors
are graduates of colleges and theological seminaries; six others are
college graduates, three are graduates of seminaries or Bible Schools, but
have no college training. One minister is going to seminary. Ten ministers
have had no special training for the ministry.