River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1923-01-04
Parent-Te
Meeting At Con-
gregational Church

On Wednesday evening, Dec. n,
group of parents and religious work
ers met at the Congregational church
and listened to an address by Ray e
Fletcher. MIR. Fletcher is the Direc.
tor of Religious Education at the
House of Hope Presbyterian church
of st. Paul and an expert in his line
His fund Of knowledge, power of ex-
preston and pleasing personality en-
abled him to give a message that
Judging by the questions That follow
ed, made deep impression on his au-
dience.
He pointed out that religious educa-
tion is at last receiving some OF the
attention that it deserves. Thinkers
both inside and outside of the church
are beginning to realize that it is re-
ligious training that must be relied
upon for the salvation of this coun-
try of ours. Moral training, valuable
as it is in itself, is not enough. Know
ledge Of right and wrong is one
thing but motives for conduct is an
other. Thus at the present time
there are more than 1000 comguni-
ties in the United States that main
tain some sort of religious school in
addition to the regular Sunday school.
This is problem of the churches
which they can not escape. 1t is a
tremendous opportunity but a respon-
sibility that must receive prayerful
consideration.
With respect to the church itself,
Mr.. Fletcher called attention to the
fact that in order to increase its ef-
fectiveness, there should be closer
correlation between its various de-
partments. There is a tendency for
the various activities like the Sunday
school, Ladies Aid, Young Peoples
societies, ETC., to consider themselves
as separate and distinct units acting
under the auspices of the church but
IlOL IECOS tilG CAloISiiI1 ~ oit@
another or accepting much rcspon-
sibility for the support and welfare OF
the church. To partially eliminate
this, he suggested that there be one
common treasury in the whole organi-
zation. The church as a whole should
take the responsibility of fInancing
each of it's various branches and they
in turn should pool their efforts in
supporting the church. The Sunday
school, for instance, under the head
of religious education, should b. as
signed a liberal allowance in the
church budget. In return for this, the
separate Sunday school treasary
would be eliminated and the pupils in
the Sunday school would make piedg-
es to the church in the regular way.
The idea is not only to create feel
ing Of responsibility for the church
on the part of the children and young
people but also to train them III the
matter of regular giving. Further
more, this will have the tendency to
create the feeling of responsibility on
the part of the church for its own
Sunday school. The fact that this
sort of system yields larger reve-
nue. is a very minor consideration.
In the current number of "The
Church School," similar thought is
expressed in the following way: ut
is assumed that the church stands re-
sponsible for financing the church
school. Religious Education should ap-
pear in real figures on the church
budget. 1t is also expected that the
children will want to vote part OF
their funds to the support OF their
own local church, or to some special
piece of service to their church, or to
some missionary cause dear to the
church. Indeed, experience has shown
that when children give of their own
mtelligently guided volition they give
far more than when giving is mere
routine proposed by adults. l know a
school that doubled its offerings in
side of six weeks when this plan was
adopted, and maintained the new
level"