Advancing the Kingdom

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Advancing T he Kingdom: Kingdom House
Missionary, and began to lay the foundation
of what has in three years grown into a work
engaging four salaried women workers.
The Board realized that the workers must
reside at the Mission.
When the deaconess office was created
by the General Conference, the Board
secured Miss Mattie Wright, ‘the first
deaconess consecrated’ to take entire
charge of the work [as well as]…to reside
at the Mission. The following year another
deaconess, Miss Mary D. Olsen, was
appointed to share the work with her.
Under the successive pastorates of
Rev. Woodward, McCann and Patterson, a
church organization was maintained. In the
Fall of 1904 it was re-organized as a regular
Conference appointment and Bro. P. Roy
Basler, the present pastor, was read out to it
by Bishop Hendrix.9
Ruth Hagedorn’s research shows that
the origins of Sloan Mission are not as
clear cut as they may have seemed and
are even somewhat contradictory:
According to Mr. Samuel Lichtenstein,
his father and mother, Aaron Aris and Rosie
L. Lichtenstein, started the mission early in
1900. They were Christianized Jews and
Mr. Lichtenstein was a Baptist minister.
Mr. Lichtenstein is said to have asked
Mr. William M. Sloan to be superintendent
of the Sunday School around 1901, and
Mr. Sloan agreed. Mr. Sloan was a wealthy
St. Louisan and a member of the Lafayette
Park Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
He was also second vice-president and
superintendent of the Sunlight Shoe Factory
which employed more than a thousand
people. Mr. Sloan was genuinely interested
in the welfare of these employees and
realized the need of religious opportunities
for the people in that neighborhood.
Several young men from the Lafayette
Park Church and from Mr. Sloan’s factory
also took an active interest in the mission…
Some of the people interviewed [for Ms.
Hagedorn’s History] said these people
became interested in the mission as an
undertaking of Lafayette Church and then
interested Mr. Sloan in it after they were
no longer able to stand the financial drain;
whereas others said Mr. Sloan was in the
group that first became interested in the
mission.
Nevertheless, this Sunday School is said
to have started with approximately thirty
children and to have grown rapidly to fifty or
more.10
Church membership records from
St. John’s Church show that Mr. and
Mrs. Sloan joined St. John’s Methodist
Episcopal Church, South congregation
in December 1901. No explanation
exists as to why the Sloans transferred
their membership from the Lafayette
Park Church to St. John’s, but after 1901
William Sloan’s name is associated with
involvement in the latter church.
Hagedorn continues:
…Mrs. Elmer Rodenmeyer was of the
opinion that her father, Robert S. Kimbrell,
interested Mr. Sloan in the mission.
According to Mrs. Rodenmeyer, Mr.
Kimbrell, a worker in Mr. Sloan’s factory,
went to Mr. Sloan and asked him to start a
mission in the neighborhood of the factory.
Mrs. Rodenmeyer said the mission was
started by her father and Mr. Sloan and had
no connection with any other mission. Mr.
Kimbrell later was the street preacher for
the mission.11
Mattie Wright describes Kimbrell,
a skilled machinist, in 1904 as “Our
Man Friday,” who “delights in but one
thing more than raising money for our
Mission, namely in taking part in its
services.12 Wright comments again
in 1906, describing Kimbrell as a
“faithful friend” of the mission, whose
duties included directing the twenty-
five member boys’ brass band and
conducting street meetings.13 Anecdotal
history has that Kimbrell’s band was
organized to help in the street services,
as the Salvation Army’s band drew
a large amount of attention to their
respective outreach.
The mission was given Sloan’s name
in recognition of the assistance he
rendered, but was not supported by the
Methodist episcopacy. The hierarchy not
only refused to recognize the mission
as a Methodist Church, but the bishop
ordered Sloan to close because his
enterprise drew people away from the
closest (Centenary) church. Insisting
that his institution was a private
organization that drew members from
the immediate vicinity of the mission,
Sloan refused. Echoing Social Gospel
proponents Washington Gladden and
Walter Rauschenbusch, Sloan argued
that his congregants did not, nor would
ever, send their children to Centenary,
a middle- to upper- class church that
intimidated the working class people
who lived “across the bridge.”
William Sloan underwrote the
Mission until it was recognized by the
Conference in 1904, quite possibly
why he approached the Woman’s Home
Mission Society in 1902 as well as
the St. Louis Church Extension and
City Mission Society in the fall of
6
“Mr. Sloan was a
wealthy St. Louisan
and a member of
the Lafayette P ark
Methodist Episcopal
Church, South. He
was also second
vice-president and
superintendent of the
Sunlight Shoe Factory
which employed more
than a thousand
people. Mr. Sloan was
genuinely interested
in the welfare of
these employees and
realized the need of
religious opportunities
for the people in that
neighborhood.”