Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1923

250

THE CHURCH

Now the cure for all this is not a new organization but the realization on the part
of all organizations, religious and social, that their mission in the community is not to
organize members unto themselves but to help set up a standard of life for the people
of that community; that they fail whenever they call attention to themselves at the
expense of that standard; that some of them must bear witness to the standard by
withdrawing from the community altogether; that all will have succeeded only when
they have brought the whole community under the discipline of an ideal. The minister
has his real chance in promoting a co-operative rather than a decisive religion and
both social worker and religious leader can help to substitute public-mindedness for
organization-mindedness and professional jealousy.
Second, the minister can join the social worker in knowing the community. The
symbol of social conversion on the part of the modem minister is his willingness to
join in a community survey. There are four bodies of facts which we should know
about every community.
We need to know who the people are and where they live. Every minister and
social worker ought to know this much about all the people of the community or at
least to have access to such a body of well-organized information. I believe that the
time is coming when the churches must place at the beginning of their annual program
a population survey and that they will give to this as scrupulous attention as they now
give to the taking up of the collection on Sunday morning. We need to know how the
people live. Such a survey deals with the standards of living and the methods by which
people make their living. It takes account of housing, sanitation, and education.
Such a survey ought to be taken at least every ten years. We need to know in addition
to these rather superficial things that more important fact about the inner life of the
people. We need to know what people are thinking about. We need to know what
is on their minds. For not until you get into this realm have you reached the most
important field in which the church operates. After all the surveys of the big industries had been taken, Whiting Williams invaded the steel mills and the coal mines and
then wrote his book What's on the Worker's Mind. He had penetrated a new realm
and discovered a rich gold mine. His discoveries in the psychology of the industrial
workers revealed material which was intensely important from the standpoint of the
moral teacher and the religious leader. May I prophesy that it is in this realm that
the great social surveys will be taken in the future?
Third, the minister can join with social workers in a new attempt to minister to the
minds of folks and especially to the minds of the distressed. Here I think church and
social worker are preparing for war or co-operation. I am not altogether sure which
it is to be.
Mr. Stockton Raymond, general secretary of the Family Welfare Society of Boston,
said not long ago: "Social work has passed through three stages. First, there was the
stage of investigation. Then, beginning with 19I5, there was the emphasis placed
on treatment. Now, it is placed on the motive and the understanding of people."
Now when you have entered the realm of motive and the understanding of people, you
have entered the realm where you are perpetually dealing with motive in its socialized
and organized phases; namely, with religion. I say it is not at all certain whether the
new point of contact between religion and the social worker means war or co-operation.
A friend of mine, who is very much interested in the contribution which he believes
religion can make to the cure of the distressed mind, called the other day on a leading