Joyful, Joyful
Good morning, y’all. I had to roll out early this morning so I could get my gardening done ahead of the rain. I look forward to a little precipitation, just don’t need the gully washers that we had this Summer to return. I just got our emergency raft deflated and put back in the tool shed. I don’t look forward to blowing that sucker up again any time soon.
Well, if we were going to talk about something that doesn’t need blowing up, The Full Gospel Original Church of God, qualifies. The Full Gospel Original Church of God has blown up like a bag of potato chips in a microwave. The church appears to be covering the mountains like the kudzu. It is growing in every nook and cranny of these hills and even creeping towards the flatlands of Atlanta.
Mulva reports that she’s had folks stop her in the Walmart because they’ve seen her on the telecast on Channel 99 in Blairsville. Mulva’s stardom has come about because she’s had to adopt somewhat of a more high profile role at the church. Since the choir director, Ms. Ophelia Bottoms, has been part of the Right Reverend Dale E. Bread’s downfall, Mulva’s been filling in. Mulva’s not getting much camera time, just when she gets up to lead the choir, but apparently being framed in the same shot as the Reverend Helen Handbasket is enough forĀ folks to assume that Mulva is someone important, or sanctified. I told Mulva to let me know when someone asked for a Healing, cause we were going to setup shop.
Speaking of setting up shop, the search committee has reported that the abandoned Mormon church in Blairsville, referred to as the the Crystal Palace, is available for lease at a reasonable rate. The church seats two hundred in its current configuration, and could be easily expanded if the trend continues. The Elders see no reason for the trend to not continue. In fact, the Elders have approached the rise of the Reverend Helen Handbasket as somewhat of a “second coming”, just without Jesus and all. It’s like the Elders are ahead of the curve for the first time ever. The Full Gospel Original Church of God is on the verge of going from a little backwoods church to “Super Church”. The Elders are handling each move like a Microsoft release, except with better results.
If I believed in “divine inspiration”, I’d say we’ve got a real life example of it with how the Elders are handling each and every detail of the church’s business. I’ve known these folks all of their lives and the fact that they can now take a very niche product and make it a household commodity is worthy of the highest praise. I mean, if these fellows worked for Coca Cola, we’d all be drinking New Coke. That’s how well they’ve taken the ball and run with it. The fact that they are in the mountains of North Georgia and getting their message out over a UHF channel tied to local cable, is amazing. The word of mouth has been phenomenal too, and illustrates too well how everyone in the mountains is somebody’s kin.
The Elders have handled the expansion so well that it has made their first foray into the internet somewhat inconsistent with their other decisions. Bud Lite has been asked to setup a website for The Full Gospel Original Church of God. How crazy is that? I mean, I get that the price would be right. Mulva would see to it that my services would be gratis, even if I was out of pocket for the domain and server use. For sure they could count on Mulva to keep control of the content, I wouldn’t be throwing up any discussion boards to talk about predestination. There just seems to be something more here. There’s lots of professionals that would do a much better job. Not for free mind you, but the church is kind of rolling in the cash right now.
Choosing a heathen to expand your message, just to save money, doesn’t sound like a decision that is consistent with the other “inspired” decisions they’ve made so far. I suspect Mulva’s fine hand in all of this. She has long been a believer in the phrase, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, idle hands are the devil’s tools”. I guess she’s anticipating me having more “idle” time. We’ll see.