Supply & Demand

Many a Bible Belt church found itself in a strange position this Christmas season: it was running out of poor. P:In his little Oak Grove Baptist Church near Springfield, Tenn., the Rev. John Richard Christian found little use for the $40 he had raised for Christmas giving, in the end, used it for such charity as presents for shut-ins (though not necessarily poor ones).

P:In the Kentucky manufacturing city of Mayfield (pop. 8,990), churches have had so much difficulty finding all the poor parishioners that for the past three years they have relied on a newspaper campaign to search out needy families for their annual "White Christmas" baskets of food, toys and clothes. P:In Nashville, the McKendree Memorial Methodist Church found it had to liberalize its definition of "needy" and, even so, managed to give away only three-fourths as many baskets as last year.

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