Excerpt from The Christmas Tree Lot

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there's a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. On the third Sunday morning in October Senior Pastor Henry O'Donnell's thoughts had already turned toward the Christmas season. As he sat in his spot in the chancel just off to the side of the pulpit listening to the choir perform the anthem, his mind wandered to the long list of things that needed to be done for the holiday - decorating, recruiting volunteers for the living nativity, coordinating families to light the Advent wreath during services, planning his Christmas Eve sermon...

He was brought back to the moment by a high-pitched keen coming from the organ. He wondered if this was some new musical take choir director Shane Reed had concocted for the baroque hymn. But as a second off-key tone joined the first, Shane looked back over his shoulder with his brow furrowed. Clearly this wasn't his idea.

O'Donnell glanced at organist Walter Tibble. Walter's face was red and beads of sweat dotted his brow. O'Donnell initially feared he was ill, but when Walter kicked the organ sharply O'Donnell realized the organist had no idea why his instrument was making these odd sounds either. However, Walter was stubborn and kept right on pounding away at the keys.

Shane turned back to the choir and gestured for them to sing louder in a losing battle to drown out the rebellious organ. Mercifully they were on the last verse. The song ended, though the organ released a series of whines and whistles for a good minute and a half after Walter quit playing.

In a church, like the theater, the show must go on. Thad Wheeling came up to read the scripture, O'Donnell delivered his sermon as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, and Walter shifted over to the piano to accompany the final hymn. When O'Donnell greeted his congregants on the way out of the sanctuary almost all commented on the anthem but only about half realized the organ had malfunctioned. The other half complained about Shane's avant garde musical selection.

Later that week O'Donnell, Walter, Shane and head usher Ralph Billings stood anxiously as the organ repairman poked around in the complex instrument's innards. The organ had been installed sixty-three years prior when the sanctuary was originally built. It was rare for a church this size to have a pipe organ anymore and the four men were proud of it. However, as it aged it had incurred ever-greater maintenance costs. Much like the men themselves, one might note.

When the repairman gave them the bad news - that the repair would be over thirty thousand dollars - O'Donnell thanked him and said they would be in touch.

"We don't happen to have thirty thousand dollars lying around, do we?" Ralph asked once the repairman was gone.

"No," O'Donnell replied. "In fact our savings are pretty well depleted. Donations have been down due to the weak economy."

"Does this mean we're going to have to replace it with an electric organ?" Shane asked. O'Donnell winced. Shane hadn't been at the church as long as the others and didn't realize what kind of reaction that statement would evoke.

"No," Walter growled. "We are not putting in an electric organ."

"This is an issue for the trustees," O'Donnell said. "They're meeting Sunday anyway."

"We are not putting in an electric organ," Walter repeated through clenched teeth. "I can play the piano during service until we raise the money, but the trustees better start figuring out a fundraiser that can bring in thirty thousand dollars."

O'Donnell prepared himself for a contentious trustees meeting that following Sunday. He wasn't disappointed. He had thought Trustees Chairwoman Henrietta Miggins would be a staunch defender of saving the pipe organ. Henrietta was a third generation member of the church whose grandfather had helped build the current building. She was vocally proud and protective of this legacy. But Henrietta was also famously stingy so perhaps it shouldn't have been such a surprise that she was in favor of buying an electric organ.

Choir member Del Winslow led the contingent advocating repair. After much discussion the only thing everyone agreed upon was that replacing the organ would be divisive among the congregation. Even Henrietta didn't relish having to face down Walter Tibble on the issue. Moreover, buying a suitable synthesizer and sound system would also cost money they didn't have. One way or another the church was going to have to raise a significant amount of funds to deal with the situation.

Many ideas were bandied about including all the usual pancake breakfast and spaghetti dinner fundraisers. But everyone knew they needed something bigger. Something grand. Something innovative. And that's when Ralph Billings said:

"What about a Christmas Tree Lot?"

The room grew silent for a few moments. It was definitely big and grand and innovative. It also sounded a little intimidating, as big, grand, innovative ideas are wont to sound.

"Wouldn't that be kind of promoting the commercialization of Christmas?" Henrietta asked. "Christmas trees aren't exactly Biblical."

"It will give us an opportunity to interface with the community," Ralph replied. "It's outreach."

Everyone waited as Henrietta chewed over the concept. Finally, she said simply, "I like it."

Pastor O'Donnell was not yet convinced. "Who's going to run this lot?" he asked.

"I will," Ralph replied.

"And who's going to be selling the trees?" O'Donnell continued. "You can't do it alone. Not for the whole Christmas season."

"We'll sign up volunteers from the congregation. I'm sure plenty of people will be willing to take a shift or two to help save the organ."

"You expect a bunch of people to give up several hours of volunteer time in the middle of the holidays," O'Donnell asked skeptically.

"In my day," Henrietta said, "people were delighted to give time to the church. It's a sign of the deterioration of the moral character in this country that this is even an issue."

O'Donnell suspected people in Henrietta's day were not quite so generous with their time as she remembered but he didn't want to argue so he said, "You're right, Henrietta. And that is why I'm worried we won't get enough participation to be successful."

"Let me be in charge of recruiting volunteers," Henrietta replied. "I'll convince people to participate."

O'Donnell shivered in spite of himself. But Ralph said brightly, "Great. Henrietta will handle the volunteers and I'll take care of the ordering and delivery of the trees."

The Trustees then unanimously voted in favor of the tree lot. O'Donnell didn't vote because as pastor he wasn't technically a member of the committee, just an observer. But he discovered that despite his concerns, he was proud of his trustees for embracing such an ambitious plan.

If he had known exactly how their decision would affect him personally, he probably wouldn't have been so quick to discard those concerns.

Read the rest of the novella in The Christmas Tree Lot and Other Holiday Tales from the Little Church.

And get a new story every month on The Little Church blog


Little Church Books

Now available via Lulu.com

The Christmas Tree Lot collects eight Christmas stories from the Little Church Stories blog collected together with an all-new novelette about the church's attempt to start a Christmas tree lot as a fundraiser.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the latest Little Church book! L.O.L.: Little Old Ladies collects eighteen stories about the group of three senior women known around the church as "The Little Old Ladies."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Click here to read the stories

The Little Church Stories is a project inspired by a couple incidents in my own life. First, I was asked to serve on a committee at my own church. As I got a peek "behind the scenes" I realized how much outrageously funny stuff happens in a church which is seldom if ever portrayed in entertainment media. I thought there must be a lot of people out there like me who would enjoy what in TV parlance would be called a "workplace comedy" set in a church.

The second event was when a good friend married a Presbyterian minister. In the casual social environment, my friend's wife told great stories about her experiences at the church. More fodder for my workplace comedy. (You may also see a character in the Little Church Stories in the future that explores the unique challenges of being a clergy member who's single and dating.)

But what to do with this material? It didn't feel like a movie, or even really a TV show. It felt most like a series of short stories. But the short story market is pretty weak these days, especially for anything serialized. So I decided to explore the new media frontier by doing the stories as a blog and podcast. And who knows where that may eventually take me?

The stories are specifically meant to not be religious in nature (though, like all good stories, they will touch on spiritual themes from time to time). They are meant simply to be light entertainment enjoyable by all stripes of churchgoers and perhaps even those who don't attend church. They are much more about the interaction of people than people's relationship with God. Most of all, they are meant to be funny. I hope you check them out and enjoy!

Click here to read the stories