The Negro's church,.

Church Buildings

117

1,002 auxiliary and service rooms. The actual distribution
of the 2,850 rooms per church, including all of the auditoriums, may be found in the Appendix.' The aggregate
seating capacity of the church auditoriums is 322,400. Of
the 609 churches, 93 will seat fewer than 200 persons, 188
will seat between 200 and 400 persons, 118 will seat up to
600, and the seating in 210 of the churches ranges from 600
upward to 2,000 and over with 2,500 as the outside limit.2
Additional Buildings and Ground
Buildings and grounds in addition to the main church
building and its site are not common among Negro churches.
Thirty-four of the 609 churches have an additional building.
These buildings are used for educational purposes by ten of
the churches, and as orphans', old folks' and girls' homes by
twenty-four churches. The thirty-four buildings do not include the parsonages or rent-houses and other property owned
by the churches.
There are sixty-two churches that own vacant ground, and
four of these use this property for recreational purposes.
The general appearance of the church buildings, and the
fact that over three-quarters of them are well located in or
near Negro neighborhoods, have much to do with attracting
and holding members. New people coming into the community, and old residents without other influences such as
denominational affiliations or friendships, often gravitate toward the churches with the larger and better buildings. On
the basis of these facts alone, the leaders in a number of
churches have assumed that a big church building is a prerequisite for a powerful church.
If the building is adequate in size, arrangement, and location, the program is greatly helped. If, however, the building
1'See Appendix Table 17.
2 See Appendix Table 19.