Six Thousand Country Churches

The Commission on Church and Country Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America conducted the work whose results are summarized in this book. Several thousand persons assisted in collecting the data here given. Lists of churches were obtained from correspondents in every township in Ohio, and township maps were sent to them for marking the location of the churches. Ministers, clerks, and other officers of churches, district superintendents, and other denominational leaders gave indispensable information.

The very important material gathered by the Ohio Rural Life Survey, including country church maps of twelve counties and many data for seventeen other counties, was placed at the disposal of the Commission.

Invaluable assistance has been rendered by State, County, and Township Sunday School Associations. In about half of the townships, officers of the township associations supplied needed information. Miss Clara E. Clemmer, Secretary of the County Association, gathered nearly all the data for Preble County. The Rev. C. A. Spriggs, a Missionary of the American Sunday School Union, furnished most of the facts used in making the map of Pike County.

In a few counties, superintendents of public schools either gave desired information themselves, or supplied the names of others who did, and in some cases the agricultural agents lent a hand.

County atlases were consulted, and verifications and corrections were obtained from many sources. The topographical maps issued by the United States Geological Survey gave the locations of certain churches. The Year Books of the various denominational bodies were in constant use for verification and reference, as were the United States Census, the Ohio Statistical Reports, and other Government documents.

In the different sections of Ohio Mr. Gill made extensive investigations on the ground, while large numbers of country ministers and church members were consulted personally. Specific information has thus been collected in nearly every township, while at country church institutes and conferences in various parts of the State, many facts were secured from the discussions on rural church conditions. Not only has information, therefore, been received from very many people intimately associated with the churches of rural Ohio, but also, and very widely, from personal observation on the field itself.

In spite of all the care that could be taken, after the work on the township maps was thought to be finished, a few other churches were discovered. If, in the future, still other churches should be found which are not on the maps, the number of them will be insignificant. Their discovery will doubtless in no wise affect the conclusions which have been drawn as to the country church situation in Ohio, nor their omission impair the general usefulness of the maps.

In the constructive work of the Commission and of the Ohio Rural Life Association for rural church betterment, as well as in the survey, the Ohio State University, under Dr. Thompson, has always given free and valuable co?peration.

For all this kind assistance the Commission and the Association are deeply grateful, and here express their hearty thanks.

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In Part III of this volume are 88 country church maps, one for each county in the State of Ohio. The making of these maps was part of a program adopted in 1914 by the Commission on Church and Country Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. It seemed to the Commission that an attempt ought to be made to test the possibilities of rural church improvement through interdenominational co?peration in some one State.

Ohio was chosen because of its geographical location, because of the variety of its church conditions, and because in a number of its counties a country church survey had already been made. This survey had indicated a widespread need for the readjustment of church life to community welfare in rural Ohio.

It was therefore determined, if possible, to complete a series of maps for the entire State which would summarize the facts. In dealing with so many churches in so large an area, it was of course feasible to collect only a very small number of facts concerning each church. Accordingly the facts to be gathered were limited to the location of every rural church, its denomination, its present membership, whether it is gaining or losing in membership, whether it ordinarily has a resident pastor, and if not, what part of a minister's service it receives.

The collection of such facts was necessary, first, to impress upon the church officials and others the actual urgency of the situation, and second, to provide a basis for a workable policy of interchurch co?peration and reciprocity in influencing or directing the redistribution of ministers and churches.

While the making of the church maps appeared to be the least amount of preliminary work that would open the way for effective action, it was evident that nothing adequate could be done for rural church betterment without interdenominational, or undenominational, organization. Therefore, when the branch office of the Commission on Church and Country Life was opened in Columbus, Ohio, in August, 1914, at the same time the Ohio Rural Life Association was formed to co?perate with the Commission in its work in the State. Soon afterward a Committee on Interchurch Co?peration, consisting of executives in charge of the country churches of eleven denominations, was organized. The principles which it adopted to govern its action mark a forward step of real importance. (See page 235.)

The chief burden of making the church maps has rested upon the Commission on Church and Country Life. Its paid executive and office force have done the main part of the work, but valuable assistance has been rendered by the Ohio Rural Life Association. Much of the work was done in its name.

Incidentally, the co?perative work of these bodies has by no means been confined to the making of surveys. Country Life Institutes have been held, and an educational propaganda in the interest of the rural church has been continuously carried on, with the result that in Ohio more than in any other State has the country church gained ground in its command of public interest. As a subject for addresses and discussion the country church has a place in a large number of farmers' institutes, and in nearly all Sunday school conventions, while during Farmers' Week at the State Agricultural College, conferences on no other subject have attracted more people or provoked more animated discussion.

Inasmuch as the collecting of the data extended over a period of more than three years, the maps do not all represent the exact situation at the same moment. While they were being made some of the churches were being redistributed in different circuits, and membership rolls were increasing or decreasing. Since the map for their county was completed some churches have federated, or their members have all united in a denominational union church. But while the maps do not constitute a snap shot of the entire State, the changes which have taken place are too few in any way to invalidate the conclusions drawn. The total situation is indicated with sufficient correctness.

These maps should supply the indispensable basis for the readjustment that is obviously required. We hope that the publishing of them will not only register a stage of progress in the State of Ohio, but that in other States also similar work will be undertaken, and that the forward movement in rural church life will be strengthened and accelerated throughout the nation.

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Ohio contains in its area of 41,060 square miles, some 1,388 townships. If we exclude the townships in which the population is urban, those in which there are villages of more than 2,500 inhabitants (the number set by the United States Census as separating the country from the town), those which contain parts of, or border on, large town or city parishes, there remain 1,170 townships which may be classed as strictly rural. These rural townships have in all 6,060 churches and nearly 1,700,000 persons.

Each of them has on an average a population of 1,448 persons, with five churches, or one church to every 280 persons. If we include with the strictly rural townships the rural sections of townships not exclusively rural, there are in Ohio no less than 6,642 country churches.

As these facts would indicate, the country churches of Ohio for the most part are small and weak. According to data gathered by the earlier survey made under the direction of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, the churches whose membership is less than 100 as a rule do not prosper, and the smaller the membership the greater the proportion of the churches which are on the decline. In Ohio more than 4,500, or 66 per cent, of the rural churches have a membership of 100 or less; more than 3,600, or 55 per cent, have a membership of 75 or less; more than 2,400, or 37 per cent, a membership of 50 or less.

The membership in these country churches is distressingly small, but the attendance is smaller still. The data available indicate that ordinarily it is less than half the membership.

In six churches taken at random, it was found that the figures ran as follows:

Membership Average attendance

125 34

300 136

173 30 to 40

150 Less than 30

300 - 40

1,048 270

In one township it is reported that the average attendance in each of its eight churches is less than 25.

One of the most striking facts is the shortage of resident ministers. While a reasonable degree of interchurch co?peration should result in the maintenance of a resident pastor in nearly every township, yet in 317, or 27 per cent, of the strictly rural townships, no church has a resident pastor. (See Map 11, page 49.) More than 4,400, or about two-thirds, of the churches in rural Ohio, and 39 per cent of the villages are without resident ministers, while in the open country only 360, or 13 per cent, of the 2,807 churches have resident pastors.

The efforts of the ministers are so scattered over fields more or less widely separated that much of their effectiveness is lost. (Consult the county maps, pages 147-234.) More than 5,500 of the 6,642 country churches are without the full time service of a minister; 3,755 have only one-third or less of a minister's services; 2,500 have one-fourth or less; while more than 750 have no regular service of a minister at all. A large number of ministers have other occupations than the ministry.

Moreover it is a rule of nearly universal application that ministers of country churches in Ohio do not remain long enough in their parishes to make effective service possible. According to the official records of the conferences of the largest and doubtless one of the most efficient of the denominations, in the fall of 1917, 48 per cent of its rural ministers were about to begin their first year, and 74 per cent either their first or second year of service in the fields to which they were appointed. Only 26 per cent had had a two years' acquaintance with their parishes, while only 8 ministers, or scarcely more than 1 per cent, had served as long as five years. This condition is no better in nearly all the other denominations.

Because of this, and also because the effort of the ministry is divided among various and widely separated churches, the people who live in the rural districts in Ohio receive too little pastoral service. The short term also discourages the ministers from attempting to discover and meet the needs of their communities and from formulating and carrying out any adequate plans of community service. The churches, as a rule, are not trained to expect such service, nor the ministers to render it.

In certain extensive areas in Ohio the country church seems to have broken down. (See Chapters IV and V.) In regions where it has been active for a century it has failed and is now failing to dispel ignorance and superstition, to prevent the spread of vice and disease, and to check the increasing production of undeveloped and abnormal individuals. Because of the lack of an organization to co?rdinate the work of the denominations, and to study the field as a whole, no one has been conscious of responsibility for such failure. The conditions have not even been known by many of the church officials who were responsible, and a situation has been permitted to develop which threatens the welfare of the whole State and demands the immediate redirection of the Church's missionary activities.

The pay of the country ministers in Ohio is small, the support of the church meager. According to the records of the Conferences held in the fall of 1917 the majority of the ministers (58 per cent) of the largest denomination received less than $1,100 each, three-fourths (74.6 per cent) less than $1,200, while the average amount was $857 and free use of parsonage. In the denomination with the second largest number of country churches the average salary was only $787, or $680 and free use of parsonage.

Over considerable areas a large proportion of the ministers are uneducated. Often they are illiterate and entirely unfitted to render service acceptable to the more intelligent part of their people. In most of the State, the standard of education for ministers is low. It is in part due to the failure of an insufficiently educated ministry to stimulate the intellectual life of the people, that from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 people in the State have no public libraries.

Unless a larger and stronger social and religious institution is created in the country districts than is now found in the country church, the more vigorous young people will for the most part leave the country, and an inferior class will take their places on the farm. A process of reverse selection will therefore set in which must result in the general debasement of our rural population and ultimately of our nation as a whole. As is well known, this process of decadence is already taking place over very large areas in rural America.

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