SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE CHURCH

The church may be, and often is, an important agency in the community for the performance of services other than that of ministering to the religious wants of the people.  Or, to speak more correctly, it has realized more or less fully that the religious wants of the people are closely bound up with their other wants, and seeks to minister to these other wants as a part of its religious duty.  Thus, we find the church growing more active in looking after the health interests, educational interests, and social and recreational interests of its members and others.

Investigate and report on: 

The number of religious denominations having churches in your community.

The number of churches in each denomination.

Membership and attendance in the churches of your community.

Arguments for and against church consolidation in your community.

Activities of churches in your community, other than religious.

Religious organizations other than churches in your community.

READINGS

In lessons in community and national life: 

Series A:  Lesson 27, Concentration of social institutions (including the
                      school and the church).

Series B:  Lesson 12, Impersonality of modern life. 
           Lesson 20, The church as a social institution. 
           Lesson 29, Labor organizations.

Series C:  Lesson 11, The effects of machinery on rural life. 
           Lesson 29, Child labor. 
           Lesson 32, Housing for workers.

“Sources of Information on Play and Recreation,” by Lee F. Hanmer and Howard W. Knight; Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, New York (1915).

The playground.  A monthly publication of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1 Madison Ave., New York ($2 a year).

Neighborhood play.  A manual of rural recreation (The Youth’s
Companion, Boston).

McCready, S. B., Rural Science Reader.  In “Rural Education
Series,” H. W. Foght, general editor (Heath).

Write the County Work Department, International Committee of the
Y. M. C. A. for material.

Foght, H. W., The rural teacher and his work, Chapter vi (The rural school and community recreation).

Jackson, Henry E., A community Center—­what it is and how to
organize it, U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1918, No. 11.

Quick, Herbert, “The rural awakening in its relation to civic and social center development.”  Bulletin No. 474, University of Wisconsin.

“Beautifying the Farmstead,” Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1087, U. S. Department of Agriculture.