The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-29
HICKMAN FAVORS
 CHURCH PUBLICITY. AS WORK BUILDER.
Pastor of Edgewood Com munity Church Returns From Course of Study
 of Theology

Rev. T. s. Hickman has returned from his stay in New York, with dozens of enthusiastic plans for the Edgewood Community church.
 The popular pastor of this charge did not seek the allurements of the noun tains nor the coast for his vacation. In stead, he spent what he claims was one of the most delightful seasons of his life at the summer school of theology in Auburn. New York. He has come back to Birmingham with even greater zeal for the establishment of a modern church that will cooperate actively with every phase of upbulding of com nunity life.
 The Community church, which has en- listed the interest of the citizens of Edgewood belonging to all denomina- tions Is an exam plification of the pas tors belief in the church as a center for all community activity and as a medium for social service in the spirit of religion.
 THEIR PLAN
 The whole idea of the summer school was to stimulate and invgorate pastors and laymen and to send them home with bigger programmes for the church as 1t should function in the community life" MT, Hickman remarked yester- day, after greeting me with the assur ance "Edgewood Community church is growing stronger every day. Gradual ly, of course. But l don't know many of our people who have tried com munity work through the channels of the church will be willing again to go back to the old way of doing things.
 Auburn has a wonderfully progressive spirit" he resumed.
 One of the features of the summer school that interested me was the course on The Church an Educator" by Dr. Henry F. Cope, secretary of the Re- ligious Education Association of the Bap- tist Convention. Dr. Cope in his many books and in his lectures takes the view that l believe the modern religious world will some day adopt-that the church is responsible for the education of the people of it's community. He be- lieves that the Sunday school should have more time than short period once week for Bible study, and that the church should function more in week. day educational activities.
 ECONOMICS
 Attractive courses were offered rural pastors" MT. Hickman commented, but as I was particularly concerned in work of the city church. I gave especial at tention to economics, Americanization and church publicity.
 So many of the big problems of morals and religion are closely bound up with the economic struggle for existence" agreed Mir. Hickman. One of the great moral issues of the day, justice to the worker, cannot be understood without knowledge of certain great economic facts. Tho evils of the city, being largely the product of our present economic sys- tenn, can be dealt with best by sound thinkers who are equipped with an un- derstanding of human beings in all their Ia tfor1a inc aRn nrD Dff1ia a and political.
 "The church's part in constructive and sympathetically helping the foreigner and the native-born to understand each other and to cooperate for the building of Christian America, was the under lying theme of the lectures and discus sions that interested me in Americaniza- , ton work" said MT. Hickman.
 The immigrant was studied as very human product of the social, economic and religious conditions out of which he came. with his possibilities for good ana evil in our developing national life.
 CHURCH PUBLICITY
 Perhaps you will be interested to know that church publicity is now hav- ing a large share in all great renomina- tional conventions and in local Churches said MT. Hickman. "No discussions were more interesting to me than those at Auburn conducted by Prof. Herbert Smith of Chicago. MT. Smith is not clergyman, but he understands clergy mans job, and seeks sympathetically to help him do it. From seventeen years experience in secular and rligious news- papers, MT. Smith looks at the church from the standpoint of an organized business concern. Every other business advertises Why not advertise the big business of the church? It is first to ad' vertise through its own circles. Why not through the medium of the newspapers that everybody reads?
 I'm going to present the matter and ask for a full discussion of church pub iicity at the Pastors Union,' insisted MI Hickman, because I believe it pays to advertise.
 "Edgewood Community Church." ho reiterated, as he sought the southbound car mo indeed, it will never be satis- fled to go back to the old way of doing things <