This is an important publication as it describes the culture and life of Kansas in the 1920's as seen from the vantage point of the Mission agency of the Methodist Episcopal Church, particularly as it saw itself adapting to this culture. Here the perceptive reader can gain insight into the importance of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the turn of the century to just after World War I.  Described here are ministries in rural, "frontier" and city settings of Kansas during a period of remarkable growth and influence for the Methodist Episcopal Church. And if the reader's Kansas parents, grandparents or great grandparents were part of this '20's Methodism, this should help you understand the deep religious commitment and denominational pride that has, no doubt, been passed down through many generations of your family. You are among many thousands whose ancestors lived in Kansas during these "glorious times."

The population growth as a whole has been slow, registering for the decade of 1910 - 1920 only 7.8 per cent. The ... foreign born ... are from northern Europe and more easily Americanized. ... The Negro population ... increase[d] 14.8 per cent. Illiteracy is here at its lowest point in the United States, only ... 2 per cent coming under that classification.

The largest iron ore mines in the world are to be found in Minnesota, also important lumbering, shipping, and flour milling industries. Large lead and zinc mines are found in Missouri; coal mines in Iowa and Kansas; oil wells in Kansas; and gold, silver, and lead mines in South Dakota. The industrial development of the cities varies, but rests primarily on the products of the soil in the given regions.

In God's garden. -- The panorama that unfolds for the traveler is one of enchantment. He is in a vast garden -- God's garden, someone has called it -- where fields of wheat and fields of corn seem to stretch endlessly. They called it the "great American desert" in the long ago, when the distant gold fields of the Pacific lured multitudes across it. Little did they dream as they took their painful ox-team pilgrimage along the trails, that under their feet was wealth untold. It waited only the coming of the settler to yield its riches. Today that desert in truth blossoms as the rose, and the disdained prairies have become the "bread basket of the world."

The crops of grain, however, are not the largest harvest of these states. Closely allied with the tilling of the soil is the cultivation of character. Contact with the soil seems to bring a consciousness of God.

The fellowship of the soil. -- In the words of a great Norwegian man of letters, the growth of the soil and the worker go hand in hand:
 

The product of missions. -- Here where life still clings to the soil, churches of Christ flourish and bring forth a large harvest. Villages, towns, and cities are dotted with the spires and towers of the temples of worship. Nowhere in America is Protestantism more virile or more vitally related to the individual and social life. Its fruitage is a strong missionary interest which reaches around the world.

The religious life of the West North Central states today is the product of home missions for the last half century or more. Nowhere is there a more striking example of struggling missions in frontier settlements becoming, through missionary aid, gloriously strong churches, giving of their wealth, their strength. their prayers, their manhood and their womanhood for the extension of the kingdom of Christ in congested cities, in isolated country sections, and in far-flung mission fields. Most of the educational institutions of these, states were founded on the religious impulse, and many of them are still maintained by the denominations.

The first church in Iowa was Methodist Episcopal church which was organized at Burlington in 1834; and the second was another Methodist church at Dubuque. Of the thousands of Methodist Episcopal churches which were founded in the ensuing half or three-quarters of a century, 80 per cent are said to be the direct results of home mission work. Other denominations throughout this region credit from 75 to 95 per cent of their present churches, most of them self-supporting and benevolent, to home mission labors of other years.

In Kansas, a Methodist home missionary founded the State Agricultural College, while other [denominations'] home missionaries started the State Normal School and the State University. The church colleges which dot Kansas and the other states of the division are likewise a testimony to home mission statesmanship.
 

The rural situation. -- The problem of Methodism is not primarily one of more churches, but of adaptation to the changing needs of the communities in which the churches are located.

Bishop Homer C. Stuntz has put the whole situation in a few sentences:

"We are attempting to check the down-grade movement among our rural churches. The country population of the states is almost stationary. In some places it is decreasing. The high prices of farm lands and the increasing number of tenant farmers are operating to check immigration and to force young men looking forward to agriculture as a livelihood to seek cheaper land. The coming of the automobile and other influences like the radio are steadily working against the country church. We are doing our utmost to make such combinations of country churches with the churches in towns near which they are located and with one another in the open country as will conserve the membership we already have there, and minister to the growing youth of these scattered communities."

Adapting the country church. -- The telephone, the rural free delivery, the interurban railway, the automobile, the radio, the improvement of roads and other physical betterments have broken down most of the isolation of the West North Central states. Modern farm machinery and improved farming methods give more leisure time to rural dwellers, except for the short busy seasons of harvest and planting. A new social life is developing, centering around the larger villages and towns. The one-room school is being superseded by the consolidated, graded school, and the little country churches are finding their members either moving to towns or transferring their memberships there. This problem of the country church is not one of a single denomination, but of denominational co-operation. The need is for one strong evangelical Protestant church in a community, ministering to social as well as spiritual needs, guiding the thoughts and efforts for community betterment, and providing a recreational life which will overcome the church-alienating, commercialized amusements which are drawing so many young people today away from church and religious influences, and which, through their very purposelessness and uselessness, are blighting the spiritual life. The church with the trained leadership, with seven- day-a-week program, with a desire to help and to serve its people in every phase of their lives : the church which seeks to make a better world as well as to get people ready for heaven; the church with the full-rounded program of personal and social ministry such as Jesus preached and practiced, that church is winning in the rural field today.

"Out where the West begins." -- Although North Dakota is the only one of the West North Central states included in "the frontier" as defined by the Methodist Episcopal Church, the western portions of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas still have much of the pioneer flavor. The missionary problems that go along with sparsely settled areas are here to be found. Vast prairies, given over to "dry farming'; great grain fields; immense ranches devoted to cattle raising -- these mark most of this territory. But there is some mining, and some irrigation.

Development is steadily going ahead and there is a curious mixture of the old frontier and modern farming in the process. Methodism is at the front in these fields.

The migrants. -- A picturesque group, to which the church has just begun to realize that it owes a ministry, is composed of the many thousand migrants who work in the harvest fields of the West North Central and West South Central states every year. Among them are professional seasonal workers, such as are found in railroad work, in the ice fields, in the lumber camps, and in the closed season haunting the cheap lodging houses of the city; college students, earning money for an education; vacationists, out for extra money; householders. securing leave of absence to work during the harvest season. In most any harvest crew will be found married and unmarried men. educated and uneducated, wanderers and ambitious students, students for the ministry and profane atheists, personal workers and skeptics.

The West North Central cities. -- While the West North Central states are essentially rural. the importance of their cities is not to be minimized. Seven cities of more than 100,000 population are located in the seven states. St. Louis, with 772,897 people is the leader, followed in order of size by Minneapolis. Kansas City, Missouri; St. Paul, Omaha, Des Moines, and Kansas City, Kansas. While the growth of these cities has been steady, and in some instances rapid, it has not been meteoric such as some of the highly industrialized cities of the East have known. Industry and commerce hold a high place in their advancement, but it has been usually a variety of industries which has been responsible. The cities are more of the traditionally American type, with a comparatively strong religious life....

Religiously, 36 per cent are Protestant, 39 per cent Roman Catholic, and 3 per cent Jewish. One-fifth admit no interest in any church....
 

Linking town and country. -- The social and economic changes under way throw an added responsibility on the village and town churches. Likewise, the increasing distractions of commercialized amusements and community effort with no church affiliations tend to sever the church's contact with the people. The church's answer must be a ministry which touches all the needs of the parish. It should be the connecting link between town and country life and the center of the social as well as the religious expression of both.

In other fields. -- The Methodist Episcopal Church at Wathena, Kansas, in nine months received ninety-three new members, and has entered into a community social and recreational program. An antiquated church building has given place to a fine new building at Walton, Kansas, which has become the social center of the village and surrounding country.

Among the miners. -- Centering around Pittsburg, Kansas, are a number of coal mining camps with 30,000 foreign-speaking people, mostly Italians. A parish program has been worked out in connection with the Pittsburg Church, under the name of the Crawford County Mission, calling for community centers in a number of the larger mining towns, and with a mission organization patterned after that of the Coke Mission of Pennsylvania.

Revelations of a survey. -- One of the camps, with 600 population, composed of Italians, Austrians, Slovaks, Americans, and others, has no religious work whatever. Another of 3,000 people has a few churches but no community centers save the pool halls. In still another of 900 people, with Italians, Austrians, Poles and Slovaks, and a radical element predominating, there is no social, civic, or religious work whatever. With the assistance of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension progress has begun in religious work in these camps. Frontenac, with twenty-eight languages represented in its constituency, has enlarged its church facilities and added a community hall with a gymnasium. Excellent contacts have been made with the miners' families, and all creeds and nationalities are served. This is Americanization at its best.

Helping harvest toilers. -- A rural service department director, a county agricultural agent. and a Methodist pastor planned one of the first programs of service to these migrant workers. At Larned, Kansas, sleeping and entertainment rooms were arranged, meal tickets given to needy men when rain delayed work in the fields, writing materials furnished, neighborly meetings promoted, and a kindly spirit toward the harvesters fostered among the town and country people. Much the same provision was made for them as for the soldiers by the "Y" huts during the war. The response was so remarkable that many other communities were organized to do similar work.

In the cities. -- The city churches of the West North Central states are among the most active in America. Made up of mostly of native American people, a large proportion of them directly from the smaller towns and open country, or only one generation removed, the city problem in this area has not yet become so compelling or so complex as of the industrial cities of the east. There are foreign-speaking colonies in nearly all of these western cities. but they are not so large as to be dominant or to displace the native-born population.

Foreign-language conference churches. -- Early day settlement, in the West North Central states by colonies of German, Swedish and Scandinavian people resulted in the establishment of many churches in their native languages, which continue to this day. With the drift of their children to English language and customs, many of these people have co-operated with their children in adapting their programs so that part of the services might be held in English. A few have made beginnings toward community programs, while a large number hold fast to the traditional services of worship in their respective languages. Rush County, Kansas, is largely populated by German-speaking Russians and the Methodist Episcopal Church has about a dozen churches throughout the community. Russians converted in the churches of this community have returned to Russia and have aided our Methodist centers there. A new church has been erected at Bison, and is exerting a widespread influence for the Kingdom.

The field of education. -- Where the forces of Christianity are to be found in such a strength as the West North Central states, education, as one of them, has made great forward strides. This is true not only of colleges and universities, but also of the program of religious education. The Epworth League in this section finds one of its strongholds.

The Wichita area is one of the most highly organized with respect to Epworth League work, over seventy- five per cent of the churches having chapters. The Area has officially adopted the twenty-four-hour-day plan of finance and through it supports an Epworth League secretary for the area and is pledged to the support of Epworth League work in India. There is need for the development of group training conferences for intensive cultivation of League leaders. Twenty-one Epworth League institutes were held in this section in 1922.

Schools and colleges. -- A deep spiritual life as well as high educational standards is characteristic of the Methodist Episcopal colleges, universities and training schools of these states. From them have gone out hundreds of ministers, missionaries, teachers, physicians and other professional men to carry the Gospel of Christ around the world. Difficult city churches and rural parishes are finding a rich source of leadership in these western colleges. Their alumni rolls contain impressive lists of men and women, serving in varied fields, who almost uniformly are actuated by the Christian impulse. Their achievements at home and abroad attest the value of the Christian college and definitely show that it is vital to the expansion of the kingdom of Christ throughout the world that denominational schools continue to develop and to be supported adequately.

The fervor of John Wesley lives in western Methodism and finds its expression in many ways. It is of interest to note how the Christian educational impulse hearkens back to Methodism's founder by the naming of institutions after him. Eight of the eighteen Methodist colleges and secondary schools in the West North Central states are named after the church's founder; these and all the others..., although not bearing his name have the same devoted spirit of John Wesley.

Methodism at other institutions. -- The Wesley Foundations throughout the west North Central states report nearly 10,000 students in their constituencies. Student work is maintained at fourteen different centers, in varying degrees, from a well-established foundation with student pastor and full social and religious program to a student ministry in the local church. New building projects are under way at Minneapolis; Ames, Iowa; Rolla, Missouri; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Hays, Kansas. There are also large opportunities ripe for development at Lawrence and Manhattan, Kansas....

Probably in no section of America will Methodist students be found in greater proportion in the state educational institutions than in these seven states....

Other educational activities. -- The total number of summer conferences reaches fifty-four, including Epworth League and Sunday-school institutes, schools for city pastors, summer schools for town and rural pastors, summer schools of theology. and missionary summer conferences of the Woman's Home Missionary Society and the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.

Rural leadership also is emphasized by the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, and enters largely into the progressive life of this distinctly rural region. Eleven of the thirty-four rural leadership departments maintained in as many different Methodist educational institutions are located in the West North Central states.

Other achievements. -- Thirty-four hospitals, homes, orphanages, and other centers of mercy indicate the philanthropic achievements of our church in these states. A noteworthy feature is the great expansion of Methodist hospitals. ...

Seven Indian missions are located in this division. The Woman's Home Missionary Society has two training schools. The General Deaconess Board, the Board of Conference Claimants, and the Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals function effectively in their respective fields of service in this section.

The call to the church.-- Though the churches of the West North Central states are fighting a good fight and are keeping the faith, the summons to advance must be sounded. Whether it be in the pioneer stretches of the western border, with scattered settlements and primitive conditions, in the increasingly congested cities, the mountain sections of Missouri, the foreign-speaking urban and rural colonies, or the vast rich country-side and villages and towns where dwell most of the people. there is need for the hosts of the Kingdom ever to be at their task.

Here are a few of the missionary needs of the West North Central states:

A community hall for an Indian village where no provision is made for recreation.

A Negro community work in a congested city colony.

Church buildings and community houses for mining camps without any religious service whatever.

Complete a building in an industrial suburb with a polyglot population.

A woman worker in an iron range community of 9,000 foreign-speaking people.

New church and community house in industrial city of several thousand people, where one-room church serves. Children meet in damp, dark basement. and whole building is overcrowded.

Enlarge church to minister to 500 students in nearby college.

Community church for town of 8,000 people, founded by atheists who forbade any church for many years. Methodist church has the field.

Aid in replacing numerous one room country church buildings on frontier.

Finish Scandinavian church left uncompleted because of financial depression.

Help for church in a town whose business section was wiped out by fire.

New church in industrial community of 3,000 Bohemians, Italians, Russians and Mexicans.

New community church for Negro congregation now worshipping in a store.

Maintenance for churches in frontier fields badly stricken by several years' drought.

Rebuild church destroyed by fire, congregation now worshipping in school house.

Develop Wesley Foundations.

Complete a downtown city center for working girls.

Supporting rural program at seven points with population of 8,000 people.

Purchase an abandoned church of another denomination for community center.

Provide automobile for hospital chaplain.

Replace Negro church now condemned as unsafe and unfit.

Expand church activities in industrial community of 17,000, sole Methodist responsibility.

New churches to reach large colonies of German-speaking Russians.

Enlargement of church in a community of 6,000 Bohemians in one city.

Foreign-language pastors for needy communities.

Excerpted from The World Service of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Ralph E. Diffendorfer, editor Methodist Episcopal Church Council of Boards of Benevolence Committee on Conservation and Advance 740 Rush Street, Chicago, Illinois, fifth printing 1923 From the Press of the Methodist Book Concern, Chicago, Illinois

This volume is not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely. Thanks to Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for loaning this copy for scanning.