The Negro's church,.

The Church in Negro Life 17
Of the present ministry, 80 per cent. are not college graduates. Less than a fourth of the 591 urban ministers have
either B.D. or B.Th. degrees. In other words, the majority
or fully three-fourths of the present urban ministry represent
limited training in the advanced schools. In the rural church
the per cent. of advanced training among 134 pastors is much
less than it is among the urban ministry. Over 90 per cent.
of the rural ministry have not advanced beyond the high
school. The rural ministers are also generally older than the
men in urban churches. The rural minister, because of his
absentee relationship, is more often a preacher than he is a
pastor.
The emphasis upon preaching in both rural and urban
churches directs the attention to this phase of church and
ministerial activity. The Negro churchgoer has been consistently reminded of the other-worldly aspect of religion and
life. In the urban church, over three-fourths of the stenographically reported sermons were of the other-worldly, biblical and expository type. About one-fourth of them made direct constructive application of Christianity to life. While in
the rural church, an even larger per cent. of the sermons
emphasized the other-worldly and unpracticable aspects of
life. If the emotional appeal made through the extremely
other-worldly sermon verges on superstition, and if the
highly intellectual sermon verges on simply a statement of
philosophy, then somewhere about midway between these
extremes the thing sought in preaching should be discovered.
Besides preaching, the rural and the urban churches conduct
a number of features through their programs. These include
the worship which is closely related to the preaching and follows it in general characteristics, and the organized teaching
and fellowship activities.
Opportunities for intensification of the work in these program features are presented by the following: (1) The large
number of workers, over 90 per cent. of 7,013, in the Sunday