Stock Photo Christians

(New article premise: taking stock photos of people and turning them into someone you might have gone to church with)

Billy Wayne Humphrey

A quiet man who comes to church alone and sits in the back row. Dresses like a Swedish pimp from 1987. Apparently has quite a bit of money. Drives an immaculate Ferrari 308 and parks it in the emptiest far reaches of the parking lot, angled across two spaces. Doesn’t really set off any creep alarms, he’s just…well…different.

The only church staff member he seems to have a connection to is the elderly facilities manager. Even though Billy Wayne never comes to the church work days, he regularly shows up and does electrical work, fixing the exterior floodlights and rewiring the cameras in the children’s wing. What does he talk about with the facilities manager? Why are they always laughing under their breath, using some sort of old man verbal shorthand? Are they making dirty jokes? No one knows.

Macie Raelynn Brewer

Macie is a stay at home mother to one daughter, a two-year-old named Brooklyn Dallas. Even though Macie does not work outside the home, she has Brooklyn in day care four days a week, “to keep her socials up.”

Macie’s day sees her alternating between Target and Chick fil-A, where she sits at the outdoor tables with the other young mothers. Macie talks incessantly about her husband Branch, who is a sort of dumpy, grown up frat boy who wears sunglasses around his neck on a strap and cannot grow a beard. Branch works at the bank with the money. Or maybe the loans of the money. Macie doesn’t exactly know.

Macie and Branch are in your Sunday School class and they always come in with his-and-hers Starbucks. Even though all parents of nursery children are supposed to take a turn in the rotation as helpers, Macie and Branch never do, and the Children’s Minister secretly calls Macie “Lazy Brewer,” and only feels medium guilty about it.

Pastor Dwayne Joe Hill

And on the 5th day, God said “put high school football on Friday, because we will need a full day of repentance before Pastor Dwayne gets up in that pulpit.”

On Sunday mornings, Dwayne is all smiles. He greets each believer by name. He hugs the older ladies. Shakes the hands of the little boys and tells them they look sharp.

But you didn’t see him on Friday night. Or maybe you did, and moved to a different section of the bleachers. On Friday nights, he is not Dwayne; he is D, standing in the top row and holding court for the entire stadium. Screaming at the refs, screaming at the coaches, screaming just to scream. Just showing his whole ass. Y’all must have forgot who he was, and what he did on this field. When he was a safety, he’d get those pads low and hit somebody.

In 36 hours, he will be contrite and spiritual as he speaks from the pulpit. But that’s on Sunday, and right now, someone needs to tell that coach to run the damn ball.

Brother Tim

Brother Tim has been 29 years old for 15 years. My man does not age. He has been an usher, a sound man, a greeter, the emergency bassist for the praise band, and back when they caught the old youth pastor Caleb doing that thing on his phone, Tim moonlit as the interim youth pastor before they hired the new Caleb.

Tim and his wife Nelly do not have children. She is a curiously off-putting woman who demeans her husband with halting jokes that make everyone uncomfortable. What is going on with those two? Once, in private, you brought this up to the senior pastor, and he just blinked hard, took a deep breath, and served you some one body, many parts pablum.

Miss Monica

Look, she’s very good. No one denies this. I’m not saying that you have to give her every choir solo. I’m just saying if there is a solo, and you don’t give it to her, you’d better have a good reason.

Dana

Remarkably serious teenager with an unchecked Mom Vibe. Rocks the oversized t-shirt and messy bun with the frequency of a 38 year old mother of three toddlers.

Her hormones are flaring like the fireworks finale on the 4th of July, but instead of gravitating towards a partner, she detoured into the church nursery. She has been a nursery volunteer for six years (taking up the slack from the Macies and Branches) and is over-invested in every child.

After high school, she will go to work in a day care. This will burn her out on children for a while. She will then go to school to be a dental hygienist. Then she will meet a sheltered homeschooled man, then have a Church Kid Late-Onset Sexy Phase of wearing tight clothes and makeup, and then she will be a mother of three toddlers, just like she wanted all along.

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