The country church should minister to country people in some effective gathering of all the countryside. A most fruitful method now in use is a corn judging contest for the boys.
In the Middle West the Corn Clubs for boys have had an extraordinary value, and in the South, also, the Farmer's Co-operative Demonstration Work has made use of the boys in the country community for demonstrating progressive methods on the farm. Thanksgiving Day can be prepared for in the preceding spring, and the boys and girls who have managed a garden, or half acre, through the summer can make their showing at that time. Such a competitive showing in the country, in the production of the staple crop, is sure to bring together the whole countryside.
The local history of the country community is a [fruitful] source of recreation. Farmers look to the past, and even the new people in the country are keen to hear the story of the old settlers and of the early pioneers. Nothing is of greater value in developing and refreshing country life than to enrich it by celebrating its early history.
Recreation is essential to the moral life of any people. It is the constructive method of making individuals into good citizens. Especially valuable is it as a means of educating the young people and the working people of the community. The craving for this social training and ethical experience drives many out of the country community. Conversely, training in social morality is to be undertaken especially by the church, which possesses the conscience of the country community. This training is expressed in the one phrase; the promotion of recreation.
XIV
COMMON WORSHIP
The worship of God is an [expression] of the consciousness of kind. "This consciousness is a social and a socializing force, sometimes exceedingly delicate and subtle in its action; sometimes turbulent and all-powerful. Assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of prepossession, of liking and disliking, it tends always to reconstruct and dominate every mode of association and every social grouping."[35] This description by Professor Giddings is so near to a description of worship, that it is startling.
Of all human acts of the conscientious man worship is the most highly symbolic. They who worship are alike, and in their likeness are unlike to others. It is an expression of their awareness of resemblance and of difference. The definitions of consciousness of kind, as a sociological process, go a long way to explain without further comment, both the strength and the weakness of the churches in America.