The Negro's church,.

216

The Negro's Church

It is quite clear that the northern church raises approximately twice as much money as the southern church and pays
twice as much for salaries. These facts indicate that the
North is better prepared to maintain a trained ministry than
the South, and is in a better position to expand its paid staff
by including others besides the pastor. That the North is
slightly more able to secure a trained ministry is borne out in
reality in chapter iii. There it was pointed out that the northern pastors of this study are slightly better-trained than those
of the South.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS FOR AN ADEQUATELY PAID STAFF AND AN
EFFECTIVE CHURCH PROGRAM
Even in the North, $2,984 to be expended in salaries is not
a large sum. In this study, the 244 pastors of the North received annual salaries averaging $1,782. On the basis of
$2,984 for all salaries, there is left $1,202 after the pastor is
paid; and certainly a competent church clerk should not receive less than $1,200 a year. The average northern church
of this study is barely able to maintain a full-time, paid staff of
two people. What usually happens is that the average church
has one regularly employed person, the pastor. Small sums
(not enough to be called salaries) are distributed among several or many people, such as choir director, organist, clerk,
secretary, and the like. The average Negro church has a
paid staff of one man. It is not surprising that Negro
churches with effective, constructive programs are usually
confined to one or a very few churches in each large city.
Further substantiation of the fact that the majority of the
churches of this study have too little money to build a vigorous, effective church program is readily seen when one recalls
that in the chapter on finance it was shown that 115, or more
than 18 per cent., of the 609 churches studied raised less than
$1,000 in 1930, or an average of $533 per church; that 297,
or slightly less than 50 per cent., of the 609 churches raised