Lord Help Us

Pastor Roger Garrison is forever searching for new and exciting ways to engage his congregation and build a sense of community. He tries to tailor his sermons to incorporate current events and even pop culture to involve younger parishioners, but has been struggling to keep mass attendees from yawning or sneaking glances at their phones on Sunday. 

As he is relaying his woes in great detail to his wife one night for counsel he is stunned to find her peeking at social media as well, and instead of striking her in righteous anger he instead decides instead of beating them he will join them. He enlists the aid of his godless tech-loving high school aged son to help develop an interactive phone app to supplement his sermons and gamify God with a scoring system that rewards interactivity and discussion around his sermon each week.

He excitedly relays this news to the congregation a few months later once the basic version of the app has passed certification, and encourages them all to download his new app, simply called “Hymns”, following mass and to try and utilize it over the week before next Sunday.

As Father Garrison begins his sermon the next week he notices the male parishioners shifting restlessly in the pews. They are not looking at their phones this time, but many are pulling the fronts of their pants and being more handsy with their significant others than one would expect in the House of the Lord. Things culminate during communion when he notices several of the ushers assisting in the service are sporting erections, leading to the priest to halt the proceedings and ask where this blasphemy is coming from.

They are just as confused as he is and claim that all they did differently was use the app at his urging along with the medicines that were sent to them afterwards, leading Roger to search for Hymns on his phone only to discover that “Hims” is the first result that comes up. Now the priest is going to have to dig deep back to his Divinity school training to help the congregation exorcise their demons…and bodily fluids, so that he can finish mass and wipe down the church before the 10:00 service.