Ordained Irreverence (Book 1 of the Elmo Jenkins Trilogy): A Review

Ordained Irreverence (Book 1 of the Elmo Jenkins Trilogy)

Ellington Montgomery Jenkins (Elmo Jenkins) is a 25 year old seminary student that needs a six month internship to complete his course work and graduate. He's a self-admitted nerd, socially awkward, who's never been kissed. While at a stuffy old fogey's party he lands an internship at the generically named "First Church" a mega-church of 13,000 members, but only 3,000 active, located in....well, the author never says where. First Church is an evangelical church, no denomination specified. They have altar invitations and they baptize by immersion, but not much more about the theology is mentioned.

The author also never says much about Elmo's physical appearance, what he does outside of his church work, if he has any friends outside of the church, why he went into the ministry, who his parents are, where he's from, what his hobbies are, what his childhood was like, what his seminary work was about, etc. etc. There is no character development whatsoever. I was practically begging to know what Elmo does after work.

Instead we get a book with loosely connected stories about Elmo's first forays into church work. He does his first funeral, his first hospital visitation, his first baptism, his first singles function, his first middle school all night party, his first church retreat, etc. etc.

There is no plot. None. The book is about 80% dialogue, written at a breezy middle school level. Elmo is described as being an awkward nerd but he's shown to be quite gregarious and likable. There is a tissue thin mystery about the Black Toe Enigma, sometimes called Tales of the Black Toe. The "mystery" is trying to determine the identity of a former deacon who lived over 100 years ago and was afflicted with frostbite on his toes. Over the years this deacon leaves cryptic notes in odd places around the church. This reader couldn't care less about the identity of the black-toed deacon and neither will you.

Elmo has a fledgling romance with an older woman, Bonnie, aged 26. She is beautiful, too good for Elmo, though we never get a detailed description of her, just "attractive and very witty" and "long brown hair and green/blue eyes". Again, why this so-called shy nerd would get the best girl is unexplained. The romance part of the book is mildly interesting, but there isn't enough of it. He has two dates with Bonnie, securing his first ever kiss from her, then we don't hear too much about her.

We do hear about some of Elmo's phobias though, like how awkward it is to be waiting at a restaurant to meet someone and they are very late showing up. The horror of taking up a table by oneself, the dirty looks from the waitress who's heard too many promises that your guest will be there "any minute", the angry mob of people on the wait list staring daggers at you, the hostess constantly checking your table to see when it will be open. You get the idea. The author makes sure the reader gets the idea too, as Elmo's intense angst plays out over three pages. There's lots more of this sort of stuff throughout the book.

There is a whole cast of character that populate the mega-church--the senior pastor, the assistant pastor, the youth pastor, the music minister, the various secretaries, the retired pastor consultant, the singles ministry pastor, the financial controller, the children's ministry pastor, the janitor, etc. None are fleshed out as characters. None are really physically described, except in vague terms--"tall, odd looking", or "small in stature, beady eyes, thinning hair" or "attractive with scary eyes". Besides Elmo the only other character that gets any attention is the senior pastor. He's a delegator who enjoys golfing, described as "he's out visiting the Green's". (And BTW, that's the best line in the entire book.) The assistant pastor is the one that does most of the work, but it's scarcely described.

Many reviewers on Amazon raved about the "rollicking book full of laugh out loud moments." I didn't have a single one. It's supposed to be funny when the baptismal water is a bit chilly and the waders that Elmo was wearing has a pinhole in the left boot. An elderly woman that cusses occasionally is supposed to be funny, I guess. Getting pressed into substituting for a pastor at a funeral service and wearing a golf shirt instead of a suit and tie is supposed to be funny. Having a roommate at a church retreat snore at night is supposed to be funny. Having the retired pastor, a guy in his 70's try an espresso at Starbucks and having his heart rate race is supposed to be funny. And so on.

Since I attend a large church I was hoping for some anecdotes and stories that would show the inner workings of a mega-church. There really was only one that I found halfway amusing--The Countdown Clock. The countdown clock is a large digital display on the front face of the balcony level that counts down the time until the service MUST END. The pastor is very adamant that the service end precisely at 11:30 am on Sundays. This release of people at 11:30 is said to be one of the main draws to attending the church as the congregation gets a head start on getting prime spots at the restaurants or getting home in time to watch the start of the football games. (I thought this was quite cynical.) The countdown clock is there to guarantee that the service doesn't run over. Typically what happens is the music minister is burdened with making sure the service ends at 11:30. If the service has much ad-libbing and additions to the written program, he's supposed to adjust the five minutes at the end to compensate. That could mean only one verse to "Just As I Am" or a hurried dismissal prayer.

This book does nothing to challenge the reader's walk with the Lord, nor does it present any scenes of people trusting God, learning about God, praying to God, calling out to God, or doubting God, nothing. Also nothing about missions or missionaries. There are no Bible verses in the book. The Bible is mentioned mostly as a prop. There is one scene where Elmo visits a depressed young man in the hospital and leads him to the Lord. However, there is no description of what this entailed, just Elmo saying that his confession of faith seemed genuine and that he would be at church the following Sunday. All in all the author misses a huge opportunity for presenting the gospel. The book is about a church! Readers have got to be expecting to be preached at! In fact, I wonder why he even bothered to write the book. There seems to be no purpose. He even says he wrote the book after retiring as kind of a recreational activity and that it took him years to complete it.

BTW, if you want the first book in the trilogy, "Ordained Irreverence" it is free for Kindle on Amazon. I won't be reading any of the sequels.

I give it one out of five stars.

 

Well, it started out somewhat interestingly, with the introduction of a bunch of the characters at a church staff meeting. I expected the author to build up these characters and make me care about them, but it never went anywhere. And I've never read a book that had NO PLOT.

 

It did. There are not many books with the pastor or a church worker as the main character. This book is essentially a narrative of tagging along with a pastor intern on some fairly boring activities.