The Negro's church,.

258

The Negro's Church

Church programs, which must make use of these poorly
appointed and unattractive structures, are necessarily greatly
hampered.
Even in the eleven churches with extra rooms, the program
remains limited because little use is made of the rooms. In
probably nine of the eleven church buildings, these extra
rooms were originally the pastor's study and the choir room.
Although they may not now be used by pastor or choir, most
of them are too small to be used for classes or other Sunday
church school purposes.
The 185 churches have adequate seating capacity when the
membership, the number of churches, and the population of
each county are considered. There are churches that will seat
900 or more persons. The distribution of the total capacity
of 54,441 is as follows: 99 churches will seat up to 300;
52 will seat between 300 and 500; 25 between 500 and 700;
8 between 700 and 900; and 1 will seat over 900.
The rural church program has about as few activities as it
can have and yet maintain a church. The promotion of these
few activities at present lacks force and vitality. Probably the
chief fault lies in the absentee ministry. The rural church is
ordinarily deprived of its ministerial leadership three-fourths
of the time. With the exception of the days on which regular
services are held, the church must depend upon its lay leadership, which is proscribed by a lack of training and experience.
The church programs suffer, therefore, not only from lack of
continuity, but also from leadership that cannot promote it or
attract large support to it. A vigorous rural church program
will demand a vigorous resident ministry. Under the present
economic conditions the church can hardly command or
maintain such leadership.