at pastors will not
take kindly to such a movement; and members of city churches will
continue to contribute to the support of their own particular pastor
instead of to general pastoral support. But the weakness in support
has been seriously increased because of dividing of such resources as
rural communities have among so many different agencies. Many
communities that could support a pastor at two thousand dollars or
more a year now have men serving denominations at one thousand dollars
per year or less.

The same is true of church building. When five church buildings must
be erected and maintained for sectarian purposes in a town where there
is room for but one school building there is little wonder that the
contrast between church buildings and other rural institutional
buildings is so marked. And it is little wonder that when people begin
to think in community terms they are inclined to pass by the church as
an institution offering hope of community service conservation and
turn either to the school or to some other agency that they hope will
serve the purpose.

Closely akin to the problem of inadequate support for the country
minister and the country church is that contention often made that the
job of a country preacher does not offer as great a challenge as does
that of service in other branches of church work. It is believed that
this contention is erroneous because the rural work, while not
demanding the same qualities of service as other types, does demand
qualities of its own that equal, if they do not exceed, those of the
city pulpit. The ability to serve people long and continuously in
close personal relation to them; to deal patiently with conservatism;
to endure the hardships of living under conditions far below what are
to be found in city environments; to get the support of the people for
progressive measures, and to keep alive mentally in an environment
that is not the most conducive to study because of lack of reading
facilities and because of the ease with which one may shirk the means
of personal growth--all these make the task one for the specially
capable and devoted.

But if there is truth in the statement that the country ministry does
not offer the opportunity for the exercise of personal abilities
required by the city pulpit, then, unless we frankly recognize that
the limit of possibility of building up the rural work is to alleviate
an unavoidable discrepancy in personal challenge, it bec