One of things I remember from my early childhood was being in church on Sunday mornings. When I was five or so, I remember the pews comfortably filled each week with a variety of people, old and young. It wasn’t a large congregation, though. Probably only 30-40 people attended regularly, and that included seven with the last name of Moser. But, at that time, it was still healthy.
A quarter of a century later, on Memorial Day of 2021, I walked into that same church with my young family in tow. On that day there were 14 Mosers and only five others, including the preacher and his wife. There hasn’t been a real organist or pianist in years. Sunday school is no longer conducted. It feels like a shell of what it used to be.
How did we get to this point?
Throughout my childhood my parents were diligent about taking us to church. As I grew older I took on more and more responsibility there. I served as the Sunday School Superintendent and helped take up the offering. After high school, I started up a small youth group at the church despite being in college in St. Louis. I even conducted the main service on a couple of occasions when our pastor was out on vacation.
No matter what we did or how much effort we put into it, it just seemed like the headwind of declination was too strong to fight against. Over the years, elderly members of the church passed away. Younger members moved or found a new congregation in Salem. New faces failed to appear.
In my assessment, by the time it got around to me, this process was nearing its end rather than just beginning. Back when the church was started in 1867, Dent County was a much different place. In those times, there were no paved roads, no internal combustion engines. If you wanted to go to town, you went by horse. And it could take you all day.
Dent County is covered by the Mark Twain National Forest. Can you imagine the difficulty of getting around in a time before modern highways and cars? Picture a wagon and horses slowly trudging through the thick oak and pine woods, up and down the Ozark hills and across muddy creeks. Imagine the sun roasting a pioneer’s back once they finally exited the forest into the glades just outside of Salem. Think of how dangerous it would be to get stuck or broken down in a time like that.
This is the scenario in which small country churches like New Hope sprang up. It was not feasible to make the trip all the way to Salem every Sunday, so communities banded together to form their own congregations closer to home. This is why you see dozens of defunct place names dotted across the Dent County map. Places like Gladden, Jadwin, Howes Mill, Darien, and others are all but extinct. They used to all have their own stores, and many of them their own post offices. The churches and schools were at least if not more plentiful. If you didn’t know, our current Reorganized School District (Salem R-80) gets its name from the 80 small schools that were consolidated during its creation.
This really started to change in the 1950s and 60s, when Missouri went on a historic highway building spree which now places the state at the 7th largest highway transportation system in the nation. Missouri is unique because all of our “lettered” roads would likely be county-maintained in other states. During this period, these lettered roads were built. Many old dirt roads were retired. This, coupled with the reliability and accessibility of automobiles, suddenly made it a lot easier to take the trip all the way to Salem on Sunday mornings.
It didn’t happen all at once. After all, people are creatures of habit. It took decades for the rural churches to fully feel the effects.
Just like all of the places around the county haven’t been totally abandoned, some of the churches also avoided fading into obscurity. Corinth Baptist Church in southern Dent County and Victor Baptist Church in northwestern Dent County are two examples of congregations that have grown instead of dwindled. But the vast majority of the 100+ churches that were once in Dent County have not faired so well.
The only thing constant is change. It’s sad to see these historic places fall from their former glory. I myself am partly to blame, as I could have done more over the years. But the forces at work are nearly impossible to overcome, when God does not will it.
Rather than betray my childhood church by doing like hundreds of others have and moving to a congregation in town, I instead sit paralyzed at home on Sunday mornings and simply don’t go at all, aside from holidays. It’s painful to see the changes that have occurred. Music, for me, is the most inspiring and spiritual part of service, and without that chorus of congregants singing “Old Rugged Cross” or “Amazing Grace” or “He Arose” or “In the Garden” or “It Is Well With My Soul”, it just doesn’t have the same effect. I know it’s not a good reason for skipping church, but it’s how I feel.
As I falter, my brother and his family, my parents, and my grandparents all still show up nearly every Sunday. People like them are what keep these small churches going despite all the odds. It’s something to be respected and admired.
This is something that bleeds over into the declination of rural America in general. Just like the small churches, small towns are losing their raison d’etre. This is why if we value our communities we have to come up with 21st Century solutions that take into account the changes that have occurred in our society and don’t try to fight against them. You can share your ideas for that here on the Saving Salem page.
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