USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Minutes of the session of the Ohio Miami Conference, successor to Miami Conference, of the United Methodist Church, 1970 > Part 11
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This schedule prevailed through 1940, after which it was reduced to three days, Tuesday morning through Thursday evening.
1 Miami Conference Minutes, 1901, 62, 63.
11 Miami Conference Minutes, 1911, 31.
1ยง Miami Conference Minutes, 1912, 66, 67.
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CONFERENCE HISTORY
One of the longest volumes of minutes was that of 1919 with 154 pages con- taining 69 addresses and reports.
Conference Boundary
As the twentieth century began the Miami Conference was bounded on the east by the eastern line of Champaign, Clarke, Warren, and Hamilton Counties; on the south by the Ohio River; on the west by the Ohio-Indiana line, except that Newport in Kentucky and Rockdale in Indiana were in the Miami Conference; and on the north by a rather wavy line.
The Auglaize Conference was dissolved in 1901, and 17 churches in Darke, Shelby and Champaign Counties were added to Miami. These were Rose Hill, Ross- burg, Fairview, Hiestand, Zion, New Weston, Piqua, Spring Creek, Rosewood, Salem, Union (Rosewood Circuit), Lockington, Kirkwood, Yorkshire, Hopewell, New Hope and Union (Yorkshire Circuit) .
The Conference voted in 1931 to have the bishop appoint a commission of five in each of the Ohio Conferences to study the possible union of these conferences. A resolution was adopted the following year to memorialize the General Conference to make the boundary changes in Ohio recommended by this joint commission. This proposal was not included in the minutes and a radical change was probably not proposed.
However, in 1933 the General Conference transferred Bloom Rose, Moore's Fork and Williamsburg from the Southeast Ohio Conference to the Miami. The Williams- burg Church was sold to the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1937. In that same year Bloom Rose was transferred back to the Southeast Ohio Conference. In 1938 the re- sponsibility for appointing a minister to Moore's Fork was returned to that conference, and it was dropped from the Miami Conference list of churches in 1941.
Ministers
The practice of the examination of ministers was being eliminated. Up to 1904 reference was made to the examination of character but no charges were made. In a few years the action was "his character passed." From 1906 on the minutes reported that the roll was read and corrected or the Conference proceeded to the reading of chart reports.
A new practice was begun in 1913 when the superintendent recommended "that a committee be appointed to examine the pastor's reports, of which committee the statistical secretary be chairman, said committee to report to the Conference." 2 The report as presented was entirely statistical.
The work of the minister was undergoing change. In opening the Conference in 1908 Bishop J. S. Mills spoke on "The United Brethren Ministerial Ideals." He said
During the earliest history of our Church the minister's work was wholly evangelistic. Little thought was given to organization. Most of our earliest preachers carried on farming, or some other occupation for a living, and needed no salary. Traveling on large circuits, and preaching often, they became great preachers, but were poor pastors. Now the ideal is that he shall be preacher,
2 Miami Conference Minutes, 1913, 51.
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pastor, social and economic leader all in one. Now the minister must do things as well as preach. 3
The Conference in session in 1929 adopted a set of standards and second mile challenges. Fourteen requirements were listed for a standard pastor and four additional for second mile status. These included most phases of the work of a minister in a church except worship and preaching. It was definitely an effort to encourage ministers to broaden the scope of their ministry. These standards and efficiency charts were used for many years. 31
The Conference kept impressing on young men the importance of college and seminary training for the office of ministry. However, since the reading course was still an approved way to prepare for ordination, every effort was made to upgrade this course. A new plan was adopted in 1930 providing for
a. A faculty of nine persons properly organized.
b. Assignment of subjects to faculty members for examination.
c. The entire faculty assuming the responsibility for passing each licentiate.
d. Examinations to be given at any time during the Conference year. 4
As early as 1907 the Conference recognized the need for in-service training. A committee of three, with the presiding elder as chairman, was appointed to arrange a course of reading and study for the active ministers.
Longer pastorates were encouraged as being more effective. A series of resolutions was adopted in 1907.
That the Conference is pleased to record the fact that the pastors who have served three, four, five, or more years on the same charges . . . bring better and still better reports to the chart from year to year . . . The Miami Conference is fully convinced that a pastorate of five or more years . . . is the most profitable to both the people and the preachers, and we will con- tinue to foster and maintain these longer and more successful pastorates. 4+
Ministers were feeling the pressures of large congregations and complex responsi- bilities. As one step toward getting some assistance the bishop was authorized in 1910 to appoint a committee on Deaconess work.
During this session Miss Mary S. Geeting read a long paper tracing the history of Deaconess work from biblical times to the present. She appealed to the Conference to recognize deaconesses, to provide for their training and to establish a Deaconess Home in Dayton. 5
Later in the session, in response to the committee's request, a Deaconess Board of five members was appointed to secure funds for establishing and maintaining a Dea- coness Home convenient to the Seminary to be operated in cooperation with that school. 6 The Board members appointed were J. G. Huber, H. H. Fout, C. J. Kephart, C. B. Boda, and C. W. Kurtz.
This home was not established though the Conference minutes listed a Deaconess Board from 1910 to 1916.
3 Miami Conference Minutes, 1908, 28.
31 Miami Conference Minutes, 1929, 58.
4 Miami Conference Minutes, 1930, 58.
4t Miami Conference Minutes, 1907, 68.
Miami Conference Minutes, 1910, 59ff.
6 Miami Conference Minutes, 1910, 73.
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Deaconesses listed were Estelle Zehring, Susie Borger, Ella Hamilton and Mary S. Geeting. In 1911 this recommendation was approved.
That Miss Mary S. Geeting be employed by the Conference at a salary of $10 per month, the same to be paid from the Conference Church Exten- sion Fund. Miss Geeting is to work under the direction of the presiding elder. Her board and lodging to be provided by the charges receiving her services. 7
Miss Geeting worked during the year in four churches. Some members were not convinced of the need for this special ministry.
When ministers began to depend on salary from the churches for their income, the problem of retirement income became very real. A small rtirement allowance had been provided for some years, but it was quite inadequate. An effort was made to establish a permanent fund and to pay benefits from the interest or dividends. In 1902 the Conference voted that all the dividends from the Publishing House be added to the Permanent Preacher's Aid Fund. However, in 1914 these as well as the money in the permanent funds were placed in the general fund to be used in the annual appropria- tions on preacher's aid.
Later in this period the Denomination initiated and regularly increased a pension program with which the Conference cooperated from the beginning.
An interesting development in retirement aid was suggested in 1925. Rev. C. Whitney, a retired Home Missionary, living in Florida, proposed that the Conference purchase lots in a tract near a United Brethren Church in Florida upon which to build cottages for the use of aged or disabled Miami Conference ministers or their families. Though this idea was approved by the Board of Trustees and the Conference, the land was never purchased.
The Rural Church Movement
In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a Rural Life Commission to make a study and offer recommendations for improving rural life in the United States. The Church was challenged by this report to study its own institutional life and min- istry in the farm and village communities.
R. A. Felton spoke to the 1912 Conference on the conditions of rural communi- ties in Ohio. He advocated consolidation in schools and churches and better equipment of rural preachers.
The Committee on Evangelism recommended that a Conference Evangelist be put into the field to work under the Board of Trustees holding meetings in the neglected places in the country districts. This plan was adopted but continued for only one year because of the lack of money.
A United Brethren Rural Life Institute was held in Dayton on January 27 and 28, 1913. Leadership was provided by Warren H. Wilson, director of the Ohio Rural Life Survey and R. A. Felton, field director of this study. About forty Miami Con- ference ministers attended this Institute.
In the session of the Miami Conference in August 1913 Professor Paul Voght of the Ohio Rural Survey spoke on "The Country Pastor and Social Service." Following this address Rev. J. G. Huber offered a resolution which was adopted.
" Miami Conference Minutes, 1911, 48.
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CONFERENCE HISTORY
That in light of Professor Voght's address to which we have just listened, we declare it the policy of this Conference to encourage such re- organization and concentration in our circuits that there shall be fewer ap- pointments, and thus make it possible to do more effective and intensive work by a consecrated and fully equipped ministry. 8
Conference Superintendent Kurtz in his report to this 1913 Conference said that the evangelistic committee took action early in the year to continue to cooperate with the Rural Life Commission of Southwestern Ohio in continuing the investigations of the country churches and creating better conditions in the rural communities. He men- tioned, however, that the committee was handicapped by the lack of funds.
During the session Mr. Kurtz read a communication from W. E. Holiday on "Rural Life Problems" and moved that a committee of three be appointed to cooperate with the general committee in carrying out plans for rural betterment. Dr. C. W. Kurtz, O. D. Wellbaum and E. H. Shuey were elected with power to act in the interim.
A speaker was scheduled to speak at the 1914 session on "Problems of the Country Church" but he did not appear.
In 1915 O. D. Wellbaum read a paper on the Ohio rural life situation, empha- sizing the need for cooperation with other denominations in this important work. He presented a resolution calling for full cooperation on the part of the Conference and local churches in the work of the Ohio Rural Life Association, including the paying of membership fees or the receiving of offerings. Two other topics were discussed in this session. "Program for the Country Church-How To Work It" by W. T. Frank and "How To Secure a Living Wage for the Country Pastor" by M. I. Comfort. These were published in the 1915 minutes. 9
The continued special interest of the Conference in the country church is indi- cated by the superintendent reporting in 1912 that during the year he had attended four meetings of the executive committee of the Ohio Rural Life Association, a rural life meeting at Urbana and two days at the Rural Life Week at Ohio State University.
The 1916 session also emphasized this display of interest and concern for rural churches and rural life. In one session superintendent Kurtz, using a number of charts, discussed "Rural Church Work," showing the alarming situation in many rural com- munities in Ohio.
A rather lengthy report on "Ohio Rural Life Association Policy" for rural churches was also presented. 10
During the next several years the emphasis was on cooperation with the Ohio Rural Life Association and on improving rural church ministry.
In 1923 in his annual report superintendent J. Harmon Dutton recommended that "the Conference shall encourage men of ability and success to accept appointment to rural charges and that an institute for rural pastors and laymen be held early in the year." 11 This institute was held at Johnsville on February 7, 8, 1924.
A Rural Life Conference for the Darke County churches was held in Greenville on January 19, 1927. O. O. Arnold and J. P. Hendrix were the Conference leaders.
During the next decade very little of specific emphasis was given to the rural
8 Miami Conference Minutes, 1913, 78.
9 Miami Conference Minutes, 1915, 76-78.
10 Miami Conference Minutes, 1916, 94-97.
11 Miami Conference Minutes, 1923, 70, 71.
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church. The Council of Administration during the fall of 1935 voted to support the Rural Life Conference at Verona on January 23, 1936 and that next year the Council sponsor the Rural Life Conference and appoint a Rural Life Commission. At a later meeting the Council voted that the Rural Life Commission be composed of the Messenger editor and the district leaders from Greenville, Lewisburg, Middletown, and Cincinnati Districts. Starting with 1937 the Conference minutes carried the names of the Rural Life Commission among the Conference officers and committees.
Rural life conferences were held each year. The Policy Committee of the Con- ference had a section headed "Rural Life Commission" beginning in 1937. One rec- ommendation that year was that the conference Rural Life Commission cooperate with the newly appointed denominational Rural Life Commission.
In 1938 the Commission was asked to select a rural church as a project; that it also initiate studies and recommend more skillful tecniques in working successfully in rural churches including larger parishes.
The Wednesday evening sessions of the 1940 and 1941 conferences emphasized the rural church. Bishop A. R. Clippinger and J. P. Hendrix, who had attended the six weeks school for rural pastors at Garrett Seminary, were the speakers.
G. W. Duckwall and W. I. Comfort, who also attended the Garrett School, spoke in 1941.
Beginning in 1942 the Conference minutes carried a report of the Commission on the Rural Church each year. In that year the recommendation was offered that rural pastors become better acquainted with their comunities through surveys and that each pastor read at least two books each year on specifically rural subjects. Rural life insti- tutes were held annually. The Commission reported in 1943 that three pastors had been sent to the Ohio Council of Churches school for rural pastors and that seven pastors and laymen attended the National Convocation for Town and Country Church Workers. The use of these study opportunities continued.
In 1944 the Commission, at the request of the Conference Superintendent, studied the Bowlusville Parish. It recommended that the Conference Board of Trustees look favorably on this church's program of expansion and offer financial assistance. The Council of Administration approved this project.
The name of the Commission was changed in 1945 from Rural to Town and Country. Representatives were sent to Ohio State University's short course for town and country pastors. A conference-wide study of all town and country churches was conducted.
This revealed that 26 town and country churches were served by part-time min- isters; 26 had larger membership and attendance some time in the past 25 years than they had in 1945; 24 were located in communities where the population was de- creasing; 22 were located away from community centers. 11t
The use of the Ohio State University course was continued, and in 1946 one minister attended the rural pastor's school at Garrett Seminary. The observance of Harvest Home and Rural Life Sundays was recommended.
ut Miami Conference Minutes, 1945, 58.
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CONFERENCE HISTORY
Church Extension
The Conference, during this period, manifested definite interest in extending the church.
The church which had been organized in Kingsville (Drexel Park) applied for admission into the Miami Conference in March 1901 and was accepted.
The presiding elder reported in 1901 "a year ago a Sunday School was organ- ized in West Dayton which resulted in the organization of a class of twenty members in April of this year. The Church was named Olivet." 12
Little York was organized in 1902 with 24 charter members. For some reason it closed after a year or two.
A Mrs. Bogenrife of the Oak St. Church and a Mrs. Miller of the Methodist Church started a Sunday School in 1902 in a schoolhouse in the newly developing resi- dential area of Belmont. A church was organized in 1904 and a building dedicated in 1906.
The East Dayton Church was begun in 1903 as a mission of Dayton First Church. The organization was effected with 54 charter members on April 10, 1904. A chapel was built the same year at the corner of Fifth Street and Burkhardt Avenue.
The Summit Street Church began a mission Sunday School in North Dayton in 1904 in an empty storeroom on Warner Ave. near Grove. The Conference purchased lots at the corner of Troy and Leonard Streets where a tent was erected and services held in the summer of 1904. The church was organized that year as the Troy Street Church.
A Sunday School was started in Clifton Heights in Cincinnati on June 12, 1904. A church was organized on October 30 of that year.
A church building was purchased in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati, and a Sunday School opened on May 7, 1905. The church was organized that year but growth was very slow.
Growing out of a Sunday School, a church was organized in Hamilton in 1905. A tabernacle was erected at the corner of Park and Dick Avenues.
North Bend, down the river from Cincinnati, was organized in 1906 with a membership of 36.
Also in 1906 a new community was developing in a rural area along the Salem Pike northwest of Dayton. Here A. E. Francis, assistant superintendent of the First Church Sunday School, started a Sunday School in 1907 in an office donated with some lots by a real estate dealer. The church, Fort Mckinley, was organized the next year with 12 members.
In 1908 also a church was organized in Forestville on the Cherry Grove charge near Cincinnati.
A class was organized at College Hill, a suburb of Cincinnati, in 1909.
South of Dayton along a dirt road and a traction line a few homes were being built in 1907. There the Christian Endeavor Society of the Oak Street Church opened a Sunday School on February 10, 1907. The school assembled in the public school building on Mayo Street. Here a church was organized on December 26, 1909 with 13 charter members. This was the Carrmonte Church.
12 Miami Conference Minutes, 1901, 28.
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A new mission was undertaken at Cheviot in 1910 under the care of the Willey Memorial Church of Cincinnati. The church was organized later that year.
The Conference became interested in an area northeast of Springfield in 1912. Here on Columbus Avenue a church by that name was organized with 52 charter members.
The Otterbein Home Church was organized on May 17, 1914 with 24 charter members.
In the residential suburb of Middletown called Maple Park a new class was formed with 15 members in 1916.
In 1918 seven proposed missions were reported in Dayton-near Soldier's Home, near Findlay Street, near University Heights, Moraine City, Westwood, Ohmer Park and Oakwood. 13
The fact that so many of our churches were organized during the early part of the twentieth century and that the above seven mission locations were listed can be attributed to the very progressive mission spirit of C. W. Kurtz, who for 12 years served as presiding elder. He died on August 7, 1918. These missions may not have developed had he lived, but a strong possibility exists that some of them would have. As it was, no new churches were founded for eight years.
A church of 22 members was organized at Poasttown on May 4, 1924. This lasted only a few years.
The presiding elder reported in 1924, "On July 29 Reverend Kopittke invited me to look at a church property for sale in Hyde Park, Cincinnati. We made an offer to purchase it for $15,000, and in due time were notified that our offer had been accepted." 14 The Hyde Park Church was organized here on November 30, 1924.
An urban congregation was started in Xenia on June 28, 1925 with 156 mem- bers. The buildings of the closed Xenia Seminary were purchased.
The Harshman Church also had its beginning in 1925. A church building which had reverted back to the original owners of the land was being used for a Sunday School and some youth meetings. Pastors N. L. Linebaugh and E. R. Turner saw an opportunity here and held some preaching services. On September 13, 1925 a congre- gation was organized which took the name Riverside.
In 1919 the Taylor Simpson Realty Company gave a lot in Oakwood to the Oak Street Church for a new mission. Two adjacent lots were purchased. Eight years later in 1925 a Sunday School was organized which met in the Fairmont School building. A bungalow chapel was built at Shafor Blvd. and Hadley Avenue and a congregation organized on August 17, 1926.
A community Sunday School meeting in an abandoned school building in the Lewton community east of Dayton asked the Conference to take over this school with the possibility of forming a church. The organization was effected in 1926.
A realty company, developing Residence Park west of Dayton, donated lots for a church. When the Home Avenue and Euclid Avenue Churches united there was written into the plan of union "that this new congregation should attempt the Residence Park mission and that the equity of the Home Avenue Church was to be invested there." 15 A bungalow chapel was erected and a congregation organized in 1928.
13 Miami Conference Minutes, 1918, 72.
14 Miami Conference Minutes, 1924, 58.
15 Miami Conference Minutes, 1926, 56.
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No new congregations were organized by the Miami Conference from 1928 to 1946. However, when the Ohio German Conference was dissolved in 1930, seven churches came into the Miami Conference: Batavia, Cincinnati First, Cincinnati Second, Clough, Hamilton Ninth Street, Otterbein Dayton, and Zion Dayton.
In the period from 1901 to 1946, 53 churches became members of the Miami Conference: three by boundary change from the Southeast Ohio Conference, seven as a result of the dissolution of the Ohio German Conference, seventeen when the Auglaize Conference was abandoned, and twenty-seven founded as new missions.
Finance and Stewardship
Finances continued to be both a problem and an opportunity.
Pastors' salaries measured by various standards were too low. Both presiding elders, reporting in 1901. indicated that there had been very little increase in pastors' salaries, but a better record of paying in full the salaries promised. They appealed to the churches to more arequately pay their ministers.
Resolutions adopted in 1903 asked for an increase of fifteen percent from all churches that paid salaries lower than $800 during the year; and that the charges appoint benevolent stewards to relieve the ministers from collecting the annual assess- ments from the Conference. 16
For several years the Conference attempted to set an acceptable minimum salary for ministers. In 1907 G. P. Macklin offered a resolution that the minimum salary be raised to $500. After some discussion the resolution was adopted setting the minimum salary at that figure plus parsonage. To be eligible the minister was required to live on the field and give full time.
The minimum salary continued to rise as follows: 1911-$700, 1917-$900, 1918-$1000, 1920-$1200, 1923-$1320, and 1928-$1450.
In 1931 the Conference recommended that the minimum salary be $1300 but that this would not be guaranteed by the Conference. Little emphasis was placed on this during the depression years. The action in 1937 was "that every charge employing a full-time pastor make an earnest effort to pay at least $1200 and home as a mini- mum salary basis." 17 This began to increase again in 1939 and reached $2000 in 1946.
The Conference superintendent's salary was $2000 in 1917, $3000 and $500 travel allowance in 1920, $3600 and $400 travel allowance in 1924, $4200 in 1928. From 1929 to 1936 the Conference moved to a part-time superintendent who also served as pastor of a charge. The Conference paid $600.
A Conference manse was purchased in 1939. For a few years the superintendent received $3500 and paid $50 a month rent and his own travel expense. Beginning in 1942 he was paid a cash salary and house but paid his own travel. The salary in 1946 was $4000.
The financial situation was also indicated by a statement in C. W. Kurtz's report in 1913.
That the budget system has continued in use on a large number of fields this year and will be a great advantage in taking up the budget system as ordered by the last General Conference. He also recommended the adoption
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