nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD 403
country; 1,861 (18 y2 per cent) in villages of less than 500 people; 1,008 (10
per cent) in towns of from 500 to 1,000 population; 1,933 (19 per cent) in
towns of from 1,000 to 10,000 population; and 1,986 (19% per cent) in cities
of more than 10,000 population.
Types.—There were 841 mission schools, 368 Negro schools aided in some
way by white Baptists, 59 Spanish-speaking Baptist church schools, 41 Indian
Baptist church schools, and 8,913 Southern Baptist Convention church schools.
Of the latter, 224 participated in union schools; that is, with churches of other
denominations. Twenty-two years of vigorous promotion have resulted in approximately
one third of the churches having had a school in one year. As wonderful
as the achievement was in 1945, it should be recorded that of the approximately
26,000 churches about two thirds did not have a school and one
third did have a school. All the evidence indicates that if all the churches had
conducted schools, pupils would have attended as well in 26,000 churches as they
did in 8,913 churches. The reason they did not attend in some 17,000 churches
was primarily because they were not given the opportunity.
Associations.—Schools were reported or located in 869 of the 902 co-operating
associations. No doubt, there were unlocated schools in some of the
other 33 associations. One of the heartening features of the total work is the
manner in which so many of the district associations are making an organized
and determined effort to get Vacation Bible schools in all the churches. A
growing number are becoming one hundred per cent in the number of churches
having a school.
PROSPECTS
The prospects are that there will probably be 12,500 or more schools in 1946.
Several states have provided for a one-day associational Vacation Bible school
conference in every association in the state. A volunteer army of more than
1,000 people will be busy this spring visiting churches, conducting conferences,
and planning for church, mission, and Negro schools. Besides these volunteers,
associational and district missionaries will be enthusiastiacally at work. During
the summer months in many of the states both the state mission boards and the
Home Mission Board will have large numbers of summer workers, mostly in
rural areas, conducting schools in churches that otherwise might not have a
school. The Woman's Missionary Union will also have workers busy conducting
mission schools. Many college students, pastors, Sunday school workers, and
other earnest Christians will not only help with a school in their own church;
they will also conduct or work in schools in other churches and at mission points.
The Baptist Training Unions will have their part also in this great summer
ministry to child life. And the entire staff of workers at the Sunday School
Board will lend a helping hand as they have so generously done in the days
gone by. What the ultimate results will be from the labors of a constantly
enlarging army of young people and adults promoting and conducting Vacation
Bible schools, no one can foretell, but all can know that it will be glorious indeed.