The Negro's church,.

The Program of the Church

125

concrete illustrations of certain types of Sunday church school
housing equipment and use.
Church "X," in a southern city, shows the possibilities of
success arising from better use of building space. When first
studied, this church held its entire school in the auditorium.
The enrollment was approximately twenty people. The
church building has three rooms suitable for the Sunday
church school: the auditorium, capacity 500; a choir-room,
capacity 30; and the pastor's study, which will accommodate
15 comfortably. Six months later, after this church began
work on a suggested plan for using all of its available space,
including the separation of classes in rooms where possible,
its enrollment had increased from 20 to 55. This school,
when last observed, planned to divide its session into two, a
morning session for young children and a later one for seniors,
young people and adults. If this plan is carried out, it will
permit more intensive work with the particular age-groups
present in each section. While these facts are encouraging, it
must be understood that better use of building space will not
result in success for every school, although almost any situation may be helped by this procedure.
Surely better use of present buildings is for many churches
the one way out; because financially they are unable to enlarge their present plants or build new ones. Chapter x shows
that the amount of present debts, overhead obligations, and
current expense and upkeep leaves, for most churches, nothing whatever for expansion purposes. In other words, expansion of present equipment would mean an overloading of an
already heavy financial burden.
On the other hand, there are many churches with an adequate number of rooms that are not being used.
Church "Y," in a northern city, is an example. Church "Y"
has a Sunday church school of 200 members. There are nine
classes. The building contains seven rooms besides the auditorium and pastor's study. Of these, only four are in actual