The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-09-18
Special Contributors.
HOW A COUNTRY CHURCH PAID ITS
BILLS.
BY A COUNTRY PREACHER

The finances of a small country church
are sometimes its most difficult prob
lem. Expenses may be minified, but
still the same old question of how to
pay the preacher, and how to keep the
church square with the world, is for
ever coming up, in one way or another.
And this is really one of the most i'm
portant of all things connected with a
church, for upon it everything else
hinges. A church that is in debt to it's
minister, or that owes for its building,
or that is running behind each year, is
not, and cannot be successful church,
because it is not an honest church, and
does not deserve success.
When our little country church was
organized at the place from which
write, we took up the matter of church
finances from the standpoint of honor
able business men. We said it was
like everything else; it must be done,
it would not do itself. We had come
together for the attainment of an OBJ
ject of public utility, and our money
must back up our profession. We saw
that into nothing could we put our
money with more hope of actual tangi-
BILE returns.
So when we came together to organ
ize the new society. it was. said by all
that we must begin by putting the
money question beyond controversy.
Our minister was not our hired man, to
be kept for a given time, paid as little
as possible, and then, when his year
was up, turned away if everybody was
not exactly satisfied. Our ideas of the
pastoral relation were very different.
We wanted man to stay with us year
after year, and exercise an ever-widen-
ing and growing influence upon the
community. He would not be hastily
invited, and being invited, he should
not be lightly turned away. Serious
thoughts were in all minds as to the
high and solemn character of the rela-
tions about to be formed.
At last our minister was secured.
How we got him viii tell hereafter.
My present purpose is to tell how we
paid him.
We agreed that the annual subscrip-
tiOn paper was a bad thing. 1t was
perpetual suggestion of the possibili-
ty that we might change ministers. 1t
opened the way for the ventilation of
any passing pique or momentary wear
iness. 1t put the minister in the atti-
tude of a hired man, with the money
feature as the principal thing, He
would seem to be preaching for SO much
year and the perquisites.
We agreed first that cur minister
should be permanently engaged. He
was to come as the pastor of our So
ciety, with the hope and the expressed
determination, that his stay should be
long and useful one. We said to him:
1--WE want you to come to US with the
thought that you are coming home.
We suppose that sometime there may
seem to be needed a change, either for
your good, or for ours, but we want to
feel that such change is among the
impOssibilities for long years. 1t is in
our hearts to stand by our pastor, and
we want it in his heart to stand by us.
If it should appear that you have the
genius of Chaplin shut up in your
present obscurity, and some great city
church should claim you to preach
to thousands where you now have
tens, we shall say, Go to the larger
field, and do what good you can in the
wOrld:7 But do not be moved to seek
change for light considerations. Sup
pose some other parish will pay you
fifty or hundred dollars more than we
are paying, you lose in personal assO-
Citations, in influence upon the cOm-
muDity, in the comfort and ease of
your work, what could not be measured
by many times that. If you come to us,
we want you to come to stay"
He felt the force of what we said,
and avowed that it fully harmonized
with his own sentiments. He came to
stay and we received him as one who
would be long with us.
We said that our pastor was giving
his time and life entirely to Onr ser
vice. He had abandoned every other
opportunity TO earn living. Our duty
was plain. We must meet him in the