nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

316 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
SECTION IV
EDUCATION AND PUBLICITY
JOHN CAYLOR, Secretary
UNA ROBERTS LAWRENCE. Mission Study Editor
L, W. MARTIN, Superintendent of Schools of Missions
R. G. VAN ROYEN, visual Education Director
As the new secretary of education and publicity, it is my privilege to pr
herewith reports of those who served the Home Mission Board in the department
during the year 1945.
Rev. Joe W. Burton, secretary of education and publicity, ended ten years
in the department. My work began January 1, 1946.
We are grateful for the good reports of the past year and hopeful for the
future.
STATEMENT OF RETIRING SECRETARY OF EDUCATION
JOE W. BURTON
Because of my connection with the Home Mission Board in the period
covered by this annual report, Dr. J. B. Lawrence graciously invited me to
record here some of the activities under my direction in these past twelve
months as secretary of education.
First, I must say that it was no easy decision to turn from a work to which
I had given every sinew of my being for ten years. No remotest doubt that
the Lord led me to the Home Mission Board a decade ago had ever been entertained.
It was only because circumstances clearly indicated it now to be His
will for me to serve in another field, and because of an opportunity to make
some positive Christian contribution to the primary entity in our whole social
structure, the home, that I felt constrained to accede to the importunities of a
sister board. Thus it was with mixed sorrow and anticipation that I left the
Home Mission Board at the end of 1945 to become associated with the Sunday
School Board as head of the newly created Department of Home Curriculum.
I am grateful that the Board has secured the able services of Dr. John
Caylor for this strategic position. He has a warm heart and a trained hand.
May the Lord multiply his usefulness.
In the past year our editorial work with the Home Mission Board was
channeled through the well defined media of denominational publications, and
the daily and weekly newspapers.
The Board's own magazine, Southern Baptist Home Missions, for which I had
the major editorial responsibility, maintained a monthly circulation of approximately
110,000. Books published by the Board had a circulation of above
50,000, as shown in the itemized list below.
New books brought from the press at the close of my tenure with the Board
constitute a graded series on Christianity and race. The titles are Of One
by T. B. Maston; March On by Margaret Kime Eubanks; and Lilly May and
Dan by Marel Brown.
A new venture of the year was the preparation of a series of newspaper
messages setting forth the distinctive Christian truths. These were in mat
form for use by churches in local advertising. The entire series was published
first in Southern Baptist Home Missions. Some seventy churches or other
groups co-operated in the publication of the series in local newspapers. This
service is still available to any interested church or churches.
Engagements were filled during the year in a dozen states and in Cuba. I
spoke on Home Missions at four state conventions in the fall. A number of
colleges and two seminaries were visited. Many engagements were filled in
churches, associations, and other denominational gatherings.
As a premanent record of growing interest in our common cause, registered
here with deep appreciation of a missionary-minded people and in a humble
spirit of joy in having some part in its cultivation, we list below the past year's
distribution of Home Mission study books: