We hadn’t heard from our dear, Protestant friend in several days. The silence was broken by this letter. It arrived this morning. Copies were made in time for the Editorial Committee Morning Meeting. We soon saw that Pastor Pitstop’s arrangement with his new “friend”, Rayetteanne Oscar-Meyer, had not been going well.
Dear Catholic Fundamentalism:
Things aren’t going well, here. You remember, Ministeress Rayetteanne Oscar-Meyer and I planned to get married, sell one of our churches, and move the two congregations into my church. Rayetteanne Oscar-Meyer absolutely refuses to leave her church and her manse to move over to my 2nd United Reform Independent Padded-Pew Perkmistianist Church. “My church is newer than yours. And, it has more space. Our roof was replaced less than ten years ago. And, I just had the manse kitchen updated. I’m not moving!”
I had to admit she was right about some things. Her church is larger and in better shape than mine. “Your roof and kitchen are newer. But, we could sell your church for more money. After we replace the roof on my church, and update the manse kitchen, we’d have more left for our retirements than if we sold my church.”
Clergypersoness Rayetteanne Oscar-Mayer wouldn’t budge. “We have to sell church. You have the most important thing of all, a purchaser. Minister McMacMack wants to buy it. He’ll pay more for your church because he needs parking spaces for the huge congregation he’s built up at Mighty Mountain Mega-church. Besides, your church has awful acoustics. When I’m guest pastoring at your church, I can’t stand trying to speak louder than his accursed shotgun blasts. There should be a law against those awful “Rock ’em! Sock ’em! Skeet Shoot Sermons!” of his.
I had to admit she had a point. Our acoustics are awful. They’ve gotten worse sinse Minister McMacMack’s sermons and accompanying shotgun blasts have been megaphoned through his new Parking Pews, where people “Park n’ Listen” to his sermons. It’s very distracting. Especially when a horde of unmuffled motorcycles come roaring in “fer a little bit o’ preachin’.”
And, Rayetteanne Oscar-Mayer made a good point about there being an actual buyer for my church. Small churches are a glut on the real estate market. There are more small churches for sale than I’ve ever seen. Dozens of them, all over town. In what used to be some of our nicest neighborhoods. I know from listening to the other clergypersons and clergypersonettes at the weekly Stop The War on Women Symposiums that the ones still hanging on aren’t doing too well. Old Protestants with money move to Florida, or Arizona, or someplace like that. Young Protestants don’t go to church. They don’t like hearing about “tithing”. Funding from both old and young is drying up. So, our churches are disappearing.
Not Minister McMacMack, up at Mighty Mountain Mega-church! He’s doing all right. Has his own helicopter. I don’t have a helicopter. Just a very old Vovlo. Glad it’s still running! Rayetteanne Oscar-Mayer doesn’t even have a car. She rides a bike or a bus. That’s no way to live. But, with her Enviro-Outreach group being such an important part of her congregation, she has to get around in some approved way that won’t offend them. “It’s awful!”, she said one night after being drenched by a thunderstorm while peddling home. “I don’t want a helicopter. I just don’t want to die from pneumonia caused by bicycling through thunderstorms. Sometimes, I hate environmentalists!”
But, in some churches, little groups of crackpots are about the only ones left. I have to admit it. I’m getting depressed about things. Nothing seems to be working.
Sincerely,
Travis T. Pitstop, Senior Pastor, 2nd United Reform Independent Padded-Pew Perkmistianist Church
“You know, I never realized that the Protestant churches had a seasonal budgetary problem.”, said one of the editors. “They must lose half their income in the winter, when their richest people go to Florida. Some probably get down there and forget to send weekly checks. Alzheimer’s. Winter’s the worst time for them to be leaving, when they have high heating bills. And, every Spring, a few of them don’t come back.”
We all felt so bad about it that we wondered if maybe we shouldn’t sent Pastor Pitstop a check. We realized that we probably shouldn’t. “I wouldn’t mind, if he’d use it to take care of the children he had with his second wife, the ones on welfare in public housing. But, he uses whatever money he gets to take Ministeress Rayetteanne Oscar-Mayer out to dinner, trying to talk her into selling her church instead of his.”
