Working Christianity

On a rainy night in 1941, a young Presbyterian minister and his dark-haired bride arrived at their first parish. Scotts Run, near Morgantown, West Va., was a drab example of a drab species--the coalmining community. In its unpainted houses set among barren yards lived 5,000 mine folk. But Scotts Run was just where the Reverend Richard Charles Smith wanted to live.

Son of a Standard Oil tax specialist and educated at Michigan's Hope College and Princeton Theological Seminary, thin-faced Pastor Smith had planned to work among miners. When the Presbyterian Board of National Missions offered him the Scotts Run post, he jumped at it. He took up residence in the "Shack," a long, narrow, white and green building sandwiched between the railroad tracks and State Highway 7.

The Shack was Pastor Smith's home and headquarters. It was also the symbol of his special kind of ministry. Its 24 rooms included an auditorium and a kitchen for community parties. Smith added a steeple and belfry to make it a church as well.

For five years Dick Smith and his wife have made their practical church hum with social and spiritual activity. Here he has held his Sunday services and conducted his Sunday-school classes; here he has directed public school religious instruction, vacation Bible schools, a 15-minute Sunday night radio program over Morgantown's station WAJR. The Smiths established a 3,500-volume library in the Shack (Mrs. Roosevelt and the late President sent some books). Scotts Run small fry and bobby-soxers use the Shack for archery, croquet, ping-pong, dances ("We've got a juke box," boasts Smith, "and we're not ashamed to admit it."). Of the Shack's pool table he says: "It puts us one up on the nearest beer hall." Smith's explanation of his work: "When Christ was on earth He made the blind to see, the lame to walk. We, too, believe in ministering to the people's everyday wants in order to fulfill their spiritual needs."

Industrial Chaplain. Presbyterian Smith calls himself an "industrial chaplain." From the beginning, he and his wife have lived with and served their flock on the industrial front lines--going down into the mines, attending union meetings, helping conduct mine foremen's classes.

Achievements at Scotts Run have not gone unrecognized. This year, the West Virginia Junior Chamber of Commerce selected Dick Smith for a Distinguished Service Award. His church has recently promoted him to be a supervisor of mountaineer mining missions, and he has moved into Morgantown with two ordained assistants and a third on the way. Both owners and miners are so appreciative of Smith's work that they have asked the Presbyterian Board of National Missions to open nine more centers like the Shack.

Last week saw the completion of one of his most cherished projects, the Miners' Memorial Pool to provide free summer swimming and winter skating for Scotts Run. Assembled for the dedication were representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, the A.F.L., the C.I.O., the U.M.W, as well as a mine operator, an editor, a Catholic priest and a Presbyterian churchman.

Said Pastor Smith that day: "If these activities aren't working Christianity, I don't know what is!"

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