Service to the community is the aim of all the Church’s activities.
The preaching bears a social message.
Formal assemblies on Sundays and week days are with social purpose.
The meetings and endeavors of every society, group and administrative function are an extension of the social program.
It is Practice to Test Theory
It is Action to Justify Profession
It embraces all social activities not specialized under some other department of the church.
For convenience of administration the branches of the Social Service Department are designated as follows:
The list below is not exhaustive, but will indicate the direction of activities now being organized.
1. Housing. -- To encourage by every proper means, especially in the lower Kips Bay region, the cleaning out of slums and the provisions of creditable housing for workers whose income permits their living under decent and wholesome conditions in that region.
2. Social Legislation. -- To rally intelligent interest of the church and the community behind governmental measures designed to insure a just and peace-loving society.
3. Individual Service for Individuals. -- To [cooperate] with agencies directing friendly service for the unfortunate.
4. Industrial Relations. -- To [cooperate] with other organizations and movements in the study of industrial conditions and in promotion of forward-looking measures to improve the relations of capital, management, labor and the public, in industry.
5. Health and Sanitation. -- To [cooperate] with and back up various measures designed to insure public health, public and domestic sanitation, personal hygiene and practical endeavors in an all year-round clean-up.
6. Maternal Health. -- To [cooperate] in well-advised movements for birth control, for improvement of race stock and for enhancing the dignity and purity of the American home.
7. Education through Self-Directing Groups. -- Meeting of various groups, especially Sunday afternoons, for the study of social problems of their own choosing, and aiming at the working out of practical measures to meet the problems considered.
8. "Makers of America" -- [Sesquicentennial] Celebration. -- To promote a series of racial rallies during next season leading up to the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence, July 1926; utilizing anniversary occasions during the year, such as Columbus Day, Saint Patrick’s Day, Frederick Douglas’ Birthday, by way of cultivating worthy ideals for the free society of the future; utilizing the inheritance of all the races in making the America of the spirit.
9. [Cooperation] with Welfare Agencies in the Neighborhood. -- Especially the Kips Bay Neighborhood Association, in vocational guidance through the public schools and in the health program of the Millbank Foundation.
These are suggestive. The list is partial. Other activities may be organized as demand arises. Through this plan hundreds of persons may be set at fruitful work. [page 3]
Numerous occasions arise for the church to be represented at important conferences and conventions dealing with social programs. This work will be systemized and adequate representation of the church provided for on each such occasion.
Delegates report back to the social service department with such recommendations as the event may prompt .
During the period, 12 to 1:30 o’clock each day except Saturdays and Sundays, any person who desires advice and help is invited to visit the church.
In a preliminary consultation, the character of the service required for the visitor is ascertained. If specialized help is needed, a subsequent appointment is made, when the ministers and volunteer specialist, such as lawyers, accountants, medical practitioners, psychiatrists, dentists, home workers, artists, educators, render the service needed or direct the applicant to proper sources of help.
The preliminary consultation is designed also to protect from unwarranted imposition those specialists who have offered their free services.
One large class of needs discovered by this consultation service prompts the organization of
This must be thoroughly scientific. The assistance of highly qualified physicians and psychiatrists is enlisted.
Examinations are to be made at the Church House 12 to 1:30 on one day each week. Diagnoses within the facilities there provided will be made at once. Cases requiring hospital or laboratory facilities are referred to standard institutions in the city within the financial reach of the persons concerned.
In treatments calling for it, the employment of religion and the cultural forces of art and music is joined with the work of physicians and psychiatrists. Disease is often aggravated, is, indeed sometimes caused by religious aberrations and misconceptions. Restoration to health and to social efficiency waits upon the correction of religious maladjustments. Thus, in this service sound science and sound religion are united in producing the highest possible social welfare and efficiency in the individual. [page 4]
For the maintenance of the Social Service Department, a net budget of $10,000 per year is required. This fund is organized as a distinct item apart from the general budget of the church, and must therefore be raised separately. It includes executive direction, general committee expense, clerical help, postage, printing and incidentals, not the overhead expense of quarters in the church plant, nor such special funds as may from time to time be secured for campaigns of particular committees.
THIS program is adopted after years of experiment and months of special study of [today’s] needs and available resources.
THIS is constructive. “Charity” is at worst anti-social; at best it is palliative and disregards deeper causes of social ills.
THIS is flexible. It undertakes to utilize the facilities within reach, and is capable of expansion as new and larger facilities are supplied.
THIS is organized. A department for this service is erected, and an experienced executive is in charge. Successful plans will be pushed; unsuccessful methods will be promptly dropped or altered.
THIS is our medium of outreach to the community. This fund is our “benevolence budget;” it is the groundwork of our “missionary” enterprise. All is consistent with the unique and enlightened genius of our church.
THIS we do mainly for others. Thus we widen our circle to the community bounds.
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