Pastor Michelle's First Sermon

Hear the story read by the author.

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. The church recently brought on a new, pretty, twenty-eight year-old associate pastor named Michelle Tellum. The senior pastor, Henry O’Donnell, decided to have her deliver the sermon on her second Sunday at the church. “This is no job for cowards,” he told her. “It’s best to just jump in, even if you’re not perfect.”

Perfection aside, this was Michelle’s very first appointment and she was determined to make a good impression. So she spent every spare moment during that week writing, rewriting, and practicing her sermon.

This was also the church’s first associate pastor, so they needed to create an office for her. The room they chose for that purpose had previously served as what was euphemistically referred to as the “Auxiliary Supply Closet” for the Sunday school classes. The auxiliary supplies stored therein were mostly broken toys and dried out paint.

Head usher and all-around handy man Ralph Billing helped Jose the custodian relocate the auxiliary supplies to the trash and bring in an old desk. “Welcome to your new office,” he told Michelle proudly as he opened the door with a flourish.

Michelle managed to fake a suitably grateful expression as she examined the room. It resembled a prison cell more than a pastoral work place. The two men helped her unpack the few boxes of personal items she’d brought with her. They quickly discovered a problem. There were no power outlets.

Fortunately there was a built-in overhead light since the single, small, dirty window up near the ceiling only let in a hint of natural sunlight. Unfortunately Michelle’s computer was not a laptop. So Ralph strung an extension cord from a nearby classroom into the office so she could plug it in. “It’s only a temporary solution,” he assured her. “I’ll install an outlet for you likety split.”

That sounded dangerous to Michelle, but Ralph assured her he knew what he was doing and Pastor O’Donnell backed him. So Michelle set about trying to concentrate on writing her sermon while Ralph noisily sliced into the dry wall.

After an hour of banging and ripping and grunting Ralph had made a neat square hole in the wall and Michelle had finished two sentences of her sermon. Ralph informed her that he needed to go shut off the breaker before he installed the outlet box.

“Fine,” Michelle mumbled as she wrestled with an unusually rebellious metaphor. Ralph sauntered out and three minutes later both the light and Michelle’s computer went dark.

“What did you do!” Michelle cried when Ralph returned.

“Gee, I didn’t realize the extension cord was plugged into the same circuit,” Ralph said.

“I had just figured out the perfect opening to my sermon,” Michelle moaned.

“Sorry. I’ll go plug it into a different outlet.”

A few minutes later Michelle’s computer was up and running again and Ralph was back at work using a flashlight for illumination. With a little effort Michelle was able to recreate the opening of her sermon fairly accurately. After that she got in a groove, and soon she had several paragraphs typed out.

“I need to run to the hardware store for a part,” Ralph informed her. Michelle nodded absently.

A second later Michelle heard a thud and a grunt from the hall and her computer screen went dark again.

“No!” she wailed. She’d been on such a roll she’d neglected to save her work.

She stomped out prepared to give Ralph a piece of her mind. She stopped short when she discovered him sprawled out face down on the floor. He had tripped over the extension cord.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I think I threw my back out,” he said.

Michelle helped him gingerly to his feet and out to his car. She wanted to take him to the hospital but Ralph assured her he’d be fine with a little rest and some ibuprofen. A few hours later Pastor O’Donnell poked his head into Michelle’s office.

“It’s dark in here. Why do you have the light off?” he asked.

“Ralph turned off the breaker while he was working on the outlet,” she told him. “I didn’t know if it was safe to turn it back on before he was finished.”

“Oh,” O’Donnell replied. “Well, I just heard from him. He’s probably going to be laid up all week.”

“Can we bring in an electrician to finish this,” Michelle asked.

“I think Ralph might be kind of insulted,” O’Donnell said. “He likes to do things himself. And he’s quite handy. Can you manage for a week without an outlet?”

Michelle sighed. She didn’t want to cause problems so soon into her first appointment. “Okay,” she told him.

“Good,” O’Donnell smiled. On his way out of the office he tripped on the extension cord, but managed to catch himself before he fell. Michelle, however, lost another half hour of work.

After Michelle had located some duct tape and strung the extension cord across the ceiling to prevent any more unexpected power outages, she returned to writing, slowed down only slightly by her obsessive need to now save her document after every sentence.

When Sunday rolled around, Ralph had recovered enough to attend church. He saw Pastor O’Donnell in the parking lot.

“I never got to ask you what you thought of our new associate pastor,” O’Donnell said,

“She seems nice, but maybe a little uptight and kind of jumpy,” Ralph told him.

“Hm. I hope she gets through her sermon okay. Maybe I pushed her into it a little soon. She’s still pretty wet behind the ears.”

As it turned out Michelle delivered her sermon beautifully and even got seven laughs from the congregation. O’Donnell counted.

Afterward she asked him how she’d done.

“Not too bad for your first time,” O’Donnell told her. “You’ll get better with practice. I’ll give you a few pointers later on if you like.”

Then he went to his office to start working on his sermon for the following Sunday. He needed to be sure he’d get at least eight laughs no matter how much overtime it took.