The Church on the Changing Frontier Part 9

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 wanderl.u.s.t. They have scarcely stayed long enough to get acquainted with their task.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

CHAPTER VII

Negro and Indian Work

Racial Cordiality

In this Range country, there are not many negroes in proportion to the white settlers, and the relations between the races are cordial.

Beaverhead County has twenty-eight negroes in Dillon and Lima communities.

Sheridan County has a total of about 295. A small neighborhood, Cat Creek, six miles west of the city of Sheridan has about 250 negroes. There are six negro farm owners at Cat Creek with farms of 320 acres each.

Considerable community spirit has been developed, which is manifested by increased friendliness and by pride in the farms. The Plum Grove Club has sixteen members, and meets twice a month for discussions on crop welfare and for social times. There is a Sunday school, with an enrollment of fifteen and an average attendance of ten, which is kept going for eight months of the year. Preaching services are held occasionally.

The negroes in the city of Sheridan are hard-working and industrious. They are mainly laborers, but some have small businesses. Organizations include a Mutual Aid Society with fifty members and three lodges which are all inactive at present. The National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Colored People has a local branch with 100 members. A recently organized Athletic Club of fifteen members hopes to branch out into a regular athletic a.s.sociation.

Colored Churches

There are two colored churches--a Methodist Episcopal and a Baptist North.

The Methodist Episcopal was organized in 1908; the Baptist in the following year. Both churches have resident pastors, serving but one point each. Each denomination has a church building and a parsonage. The combined value of the church buildings is $3,500, of the parsonages $500.

The Baptist church has recently been rebuilt. Both churches use weekly envelopes for raising their money which amounted to $2,887.14 last year, $1,164.25 of which was by subscription, and $680 by collection. There was no surplus or deficit. From this fund $938.79 was spent for salaries, $142.17 for missions and benevolences, and $1,500.04 for rebuilding and repairs. The Baptist church receives home mission aid of $600.

The Methodist church has thirty-six members, having made a net gain of seven in the year preceding the survey. The Baptist church has twenty-six members whose membership has remained constant. The total net active membership of the two churches is fifty-one.

Each church holds eight Sunday preaching services a month. Both have Sunday schools. The Methodist Sunday school, with an enrollment of sixteen, is kept going the year round; the Baptist Sunday school, with an enrollment of twelve, meets for only seven months. The Methodist church has three other organizations--a Woman's Missionary Society, a Willing Workers and Ladies' Aid, and a Literary Society for both s.e.xes with a membership of fifty. The Baptists have one organization, a Christian Aid, with a membership of twelve, to which both men and women belong.

One church has had six, the other five, pastors in the last ten years. The present pastors are graduates of both college and seminary.

A friendly feeling exists between the white and colored people in Sheridan, which is manifested by a willingness on the part of the white churches to help the colored. The colored ministers are included in the Sheridan Ministerial Union.

Indian Missions

Part of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation extends into the southeastern part of Hughes County, and about 70 per cent. of the people living in this section of Hughes are Indians. All are farmers owning their own land.

An Episcopal Indian Mission was established here in 1892. The pastor, who lives in Fort Thompson, conducts one morning service a month. There are twenty-six members, of whom twenty-one are active. There is no Sunday school, but a Ladies' Aid with five members meets every week and has twice as large an attendance as it has enrollment.

There is also a Catholic Mission located near the Episcopal Mission, which was started about 1911. The priest comes from outside the county and holds one ma.s.s each month. There are about fifteen families in the membership.

CHAPTER VIII

Non-Protestant Work