The following memo came into my hands the other day. — MS

To: Pastoral Team

From: Bob

Re: White House Visit

Hi, guys. I want to bring you up to date on our latest visit to the White House. You probably saw that we once again laid hands on the President and, you know, I think he’s actually getting used to it. Which is really something when you consider he’s someone who really, really doesn’t like to be touched, especially in the hair area. Anyway, we truly showed him the love, and did he ever show it back! This totally drives the “fake news” media crazy, which makes it all the sweeter.

Then we got down to business. We were taken to a “secret location” on Capitol Hill they call The Situation Room, which refers not to the military situation but the political! This wasn’t just a tour either, but a nuts-and-bolts training session, thanks to the demise of that unconscionable bar on our religious liberty known as the Johnson Amendment. The President told us he’d “gotten rid” of it, and even though that was kind of an exaggeration (it turns out an Executive Order can’t “trump” a Law), now that Congress is on the case it won’t be long before it’s gone the way of all flesh.

The point is that after all these years of rendering unto God, we’re finally going to be able to render unto Caesar, big league. Which is the real reason I’m writing you, to share what we learned in The Situation Room so we can begin to prepare. Pay attention, now, because working our butts off for God’s Own Party (GOP, get it?) is not as simple as it seems.

The first point, which they hammered us with again and again, is that the key to success is maximizing voter contact. That means able-bodied folks out there going door to door, months ahead of an election. Three times is the charm — think the Trinity. Old people, fatties — and we’ve got way too many of both in our congregation (note to youth and fitness ministries) — are just no good. We can put them on phones, but phone outreach just doesn’t work very well any more. People don’t answer, and they don’t pay much attention when they do.

What I’m thinking is we’ve got to work on activating our Bible study groups. To paraphrase our Lord, “For ye have the Bible always with you; but elections not so much.” And as He says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” I calculate that when it comes to boots on the ground, we should be able to send at least 2,000 of our members into the field.

Of course, they won’t go out there empty-handed. They’ll have a script, along the lines of this one the Washington people prepared for us, as if we’d been out there last election cycle.

Of course, we’ll also provide a little literature about our church. Who knows, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.

Now, here’s where our own professional staff comes in. We need a field team (maybe the sound techies can be brought up to speed), who will receive file data modeling the likely voter universe according to a proprietary algorithm developed by the data team in the Situation Room. See, I’m learning the lingo.

Anyway, our guys are to overlay this on church membership lists and then “cut turf” as they say, which means integrating the physical address and phone numbers on Google maps. Then they upload the appropriate list onto the tablets of our Bible study teams. Cool, eh?

Finally, and this is critical, we have to comply with the federal election rules under the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. That means we are forbidden to coordinate with the candidate’s own election campaign. Like we couldn’t, in the above situation, let the Trump campaign know that we’re taking care of all the evangelical church members in our area.

But we can coordinate with outside organizations — like Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition and the Super Pacs that the Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God will soon be creating. As the President told us, this is going to be “YUGE.” And bear in mind: The 2018 cycle is just around the corner.