Free Falling Into Grace by Michelle Stimpson

room. Nobody gets the right hand of fellowship in a Mockingbird room.
    She found the meeting place and joined about fifty other people waiting for this obscure enrollment to begin. Camille parked herself on the first row and sat to rest her feet again. Some women dressed in white distributed cookies, juice, and warm smiles. “Thanks for being here.”
    â€œYou’re welcome.”
    Almost immediately following the benediction, which they could all hear through the room’s speaker system, several men wearing “Ambassador” badges entered the room and stood behind the front table. The cookie women passed out folders now, and before any ambassador could explain the documents therein, Camille had already flipped to the first page and read something that turned her off right away: The membership process takes six weeks to complete. Upon completion, you may participate in the ministry God places on your heart.
    Six weeks! She didn’t have six weeks! John David was ripe now! Her future was now! And besides all that, pregnant Soprano Girl would be back in action by then!
    Camille raised her hand before they even started. “Um, is there any way to expedite the membership process?”
    The oldest ambassador, too old to be wearing cornrows, answered, “We’ll talk about the requirement in a second. But to answer your question, no.”
    Requirements? Since when does joining church have requirements? This wasn’t a job or the Department of Motor Vehicles. It was church, for goodness sake, and she needed to be in, in, in !
    She swung her foot in little circles throughout the presentation. The month-and-a-half-long process seemed more like a college course. Six classes, ninety minutes each, on Christian living, how to study the Bible, how to honor God with talents, gifts, and treasure. Someone would also come to visit her home and conduct a one-on-one “guidance session,” which would give her an opportunity to ask questions about her personal salvation, the church, or any other concerns she might not want to address in front of her group. Then and only then could she join the church on the first Sunday of the month after successful completion.
    This is for the birds.
    Camille shuffled all her papers back into the folder and stomped out of the meeting as soon as the ambassadors dismissed the group. She threw the folder in the trash on her way out the church’s main doors and caught the first trolley back to parking lot D, row fifteen.
    Who knew joining a mega church would be so complicated?

CHAPTER 8
    M edgar Evers to the rescue again. Camille spent Monday afternoon researching churches’ membership processes. While none of the churches listed their procedures online, she found plenty of people voicing the good, bad, and ugly about joining area churches in online forums and discussion boards.
    Unfortunately, her findings pointed toward Grace Chapel. One could pledge membership immediately there and begin serving in a ministry right away, but they were “encouraged” to attend “Christian Growth” classes. That was the good news.
    The bad news, aside from the whole minimum-wage thing, was the church store, which appeared to stock almost exclusively the pastor’s books and tapes. Something would have to be done about this nepotism, perhaps by way of response to the church’s annual survey, which, according to the head deacon’s Web page, weighed heavily in how this “community” church operated. She had already missed her chance for input this year, but it wouldn’t happen again.
    Ten o’clock service was more Camille’s speed. She put on the same dress she’d worn to The King’s Table. This time she was smarter about her choice in footwear, however. A wedge sandal did the trick. She arrived in the sanctuary in one comfortable piece, sporting a brand-spankin’-new Bible and a gray knit sweater to take an edge off the