PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN
Evans, Elizabeth Gler Dower
PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN THE COMMUNITY CHURCH OF BOSTON AND THE FOLKS WHO HAVE DONE IT By Elizabeth Gler dower Evans IF YOU should happen to be in Boston some Sunday morning between October and May,...
...Skinner's ready vision that a church of this character is needed in Boston...
...In the space of less than six scant years the church had grown from a tiny seed to one of the largest Sunday morning gatherings in Boston...
...The Community Church saw its opportunity...
...There are literature tables with books and pamphlets for sale...
...There are those who feel that even greater as an influence than Mr...
...With a sermon scheduled by Mr...
...And you would hear a sermon from one of some dozen or more speakers, the preacher and the subject always announced beforehand...
...Holmes in his ut> teranee...
...Finally, almost as a blind act of faith, it was decided to make the venture...
...And the audiences which you would meet, should you join with them for a morning's worship, include a large proportion of men and still larger proportion of young people who flock in from the student neighborhood and from the adjacent colleges...
...Presently there was a little office at a rental of $10 a month...
...It is an audience which any preacher who has a message would be inspired to address...
...More shortly phrased, it is sometimes called an adventure for the common good...
...Winslow is a truly astonishing individual...
...There is a chance to know of whatever is happening in Boston of a liberal kind...
...It could be obtained for a moderate rental...
...A unique feature of the Church is its Social Justice Committee which played a good part in making known the striking features of the Sacco-Vanzetti case and helped to create the public opinion, not sufficient, alas, to secure a new trial for the accused...
...Then there is the membership book which people may sign who desire to connect themselves formally with the congregation, and there stand officers of the church ready to make the acciuaintance of those who desire a welcoming hand...
...Best of all, to my ears, you would heat-scripture readings chosen from the Hebrew, the Indian, or the Chinese wise men, or from Emerson, Walt Whitman, or some other modern,— all of them noble in thought and on the highest level in expression...
...But they grew slowly, and after two and a half years the church migrated to a nearby theater...
...It meant more than doubling its biggest attendance, and it meant more than doubling its modest income, all of it picked up by passing the plate on Sundays and by other voluntary contributions...
...Behind the Sunday services are the offices at 6 Byron Street, where is an attractive hall (with a kitchenette attached) and where the suppers are served and the lectures given which are a perennial feature of the church work...
...Conld so big a proposition be put across...
...How It Came to Be NOW no church makes itself go, and in especial no church which is without a settled pastor who devotes himself to shepherding his flock...
...When I ask that question my mind runs back to the years just after the war when the three people who have been chiefest in building it often lunched together in a club on Beacon Hill...
...You would hear prayers in the form of aspirations, and congregational singing,—not very well sung...
...His own church in New York had been broken by the contest...
...But his church was reborn as the Community Church of New York, the first church, perhaps, of its kind in the country, and soon to become the parent of the similar movement in Boston...
...Then came a staggering proposition—Symphony Hall, a large and beautiful musical auditorium, desired to help initiate a Sunday morning forum in its populous neighborhood...
...A Sunday School, late in time, is about to be opened...
...You would hear beautiful music, sometimes stringed, sometimes vocal, and always an accompaniment by the noble symphony organ...
...There are leaflets and fliers distributed, some of them announcing church activities, others distributed by outsiders...
...Now the Social Justice Committee is out to secure the abolition of the death penalty...
...Mrs...
...And when, on October 1, 1926, the doors were opened, an audience of almost 2.000 poured into the hall...
...Three Leaders OF THE three people who have been the chiefest in conceiving and in carrying forward the enterprise, there is John Haynes Holmes, an eloquent New York preacher, a pacifist, outspoken against war even when the mammoth war of history was in progress...
...And at the close of the sermon, for half an hour, the meeting becomes a forum with questions and answers and discussion...
...While the equal of these two has been the creative mind and the alluring character of Gertrude Laveraek Wins-low upon whom fell the heavy business of making things go...
...Holmes has been Mr...
...but its achievements belong to the future...
...You would find a stately program with theological doctrine eliminated...
...How dees the Community Church happen to be...
...Its audiences were often less than a hundred...
...But, far back...
...Anxiously it canvassed its ways and means...
...A Housing Committee, following in the steps of New York, which shall tackle the problem of commercial rent, is a burning thought in the minds of some of the people...
...And a little later Sunday servicos were opened in a small basement hall near the Boston Common...
...John Haynes Holmes' sermons are usually printed and are much in demand...
...PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN THE COMMUNITY CHURCH OF BOSTON AND THE FOLKS WHO HAVE DONE IT By Elizabeth Gler dower Evans IF YOU should happen to be in Boston some Sunday morning between October and May, go to Symphony Hall, on the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenue, where you would find a religious service of most unusual character...
...Outside in the lobbies is a most unusual scene...
...Holmes every month, it was sure to attract a certain following...
...He stood ready to conduct the services and to become in some respects a resident pastor...
...How can a church be a church and lack instruction for its children...
...First and foremost is her home life, so beautiful, so unique, and so happily united in the love of parents and children that it is hard to see how there could be any room for the needs of the big world outside...
...The variety of the speakers is believed to give special interest to the program...
...Its pastor had resigned from the Unitarian Fellowship...
...Then there was Clarence R. Skinner, a teacher 6f ethics at Tufts College, likewise a pacifist, though less militant than Mr...
...Its Purpose THE PURPOSE of the Church, to use its own phrasing, is "a free fellowship of men and women united for the study and practice of universal religion, seeking to apply ethical ideals to individual life and dedicated to the common service for the common good...
Vol. 19 • November 1927 • No. 11
