This “story” has no plot and no questions at the end.

Money: NB=New Bill, OB=Old Bill, AB1 to AB4=Other Bills (1 to 4), Cn=Coin

NB: Wow! This is much better than being mushed flat stuck between a bunch of other bills folded up in somebody’s wallet and scrunched into their back pocket! Where are we?

OB: Mmmm. You must be a New Bill. We’re in the collection plate. Is this your first time?

NB: Yeah, I guess. What’s a collection plate?

OB: It’s a special place. The wallet keepers will pass it around for a while, and other bills will join us and a few coins, and then we go sit on the altar.

NB: What’s an altar?

OB: Well, it’s like a table, but there’s usually candles on it.

NB: Candles? Like where it’s dark? I was in a bar once, and they had candles out on the tables. I got out of the wallet for a little while there, but then they stuffed me in a drawer.

OB: No, this is different. Once they have put you on the altar, you get to do special things for a while.

NB: Special things? Like what?

OB: Look out! Incoming coins! Duck!

Cn: Sorry, Old Bill. I’m Quarter. I didn’t mean to land so hard, but the little wallet keeper that has been holding me so tight in her little fist dropped me quite a ways.

OB: That’s OK, I think.

NB: What do you know about the altar?

Cn: Ah, it’s a good place. When they take you away, you do good things for wallet keepers. You make little wallet keepers happy and old ones smile. You get to buy food for wallet keepers who are hungry, and you get to buy more candles for the altar.

OB: Sh, quiet, it’s time for the prayer. Then we can talk again.

Silence

Cn: OK, time to talk again.

OB: Now we’re on the altar.

NB: So tell me about what we get to do next.

OB: Well, my favorite time was when I went to Bolivia. I’d never been outside of the United States before. I don’t speak Spanish, so I wasn’t sure what it would be like. But it was OK. Language is not really a problem for money like us.

NB: So what did you do there?

OB: It was really neat. They sent me to a missionary, and she went out and used me to buy some crayons for little wallet keepers to use in Sunday school there. The crayons were really excited about that. (Sadly) I just wish I could have gone along to see it. That would have been fun, to watch the little wallet keepers use crayons for the first time. I guess things are a lot different in some other countries.

NB: Quarter? Have you done anything like that?

Cn: Nah, we coins don’t usually get out of the country. But one time one of the wallet keepers took a bunch of us to the grocery store, and we bought bread for the food pantry here. It’s not as exciting as buying crayons, but there are little wallet keepers around here who don’t have enough to eat. It felt good to be able to help them.

NB: So what else might I get to do?

OB: Well, there are some glamour jobs, like buying crayons or bread for little wallet keepers, but there are also some plain jobs that just have to be done. Some of us go to the Conference Offices to pay salaries for the bishop and the district superintendents. There are other wallet keepers who work for the conference, too, whose salaries have to be paid. But if we didn’t do that, then the bills that are put in the plate for buying crayons and food for little wallet keepers wouldn’t be able to do their jobs like they do this way.

NB: I think I’d like to travel! How do I get to do that?

OB: Well, usually for that, your wallet keeper would have to put you in a special envelope and mark you for an advanced special. But don’t look so disappointed! There are lots of other fun jobs, too.

Cn: Sometimes we do special things without wallet keepers even bringing us to church. One Christmas I paid the sales tax on some mittens that a wallet keeper then brought to church to put on the Angel Tree. And a cousin of mine helped buy a scarf for the Angel Tree. The wallet keepers here at the church took the mittens to a little wallet keeper whose father was in prison, and the scarf went to an old lady in a nursing home.

AB1: Let me tell you what I got to do once! I went camping! Well, I personally didn’t, but I helped buy supplies for the camp so the little wallet keepers could go to camp in the summer! I think they used me to buy a can of pineapple. At least it was better than buying toilet paper! But they need that, too.

AB2: And I helped make a video about the camps! They used me and some others to buy the film to make the video. They told each other they would show little wallet keepers around the camp fire and doing crafts and hiking and having fun.

AB3: They used me to help pay the expenses of Annual Conference. That wasn’t bad, because the wallet keepers all get together and try to make the community around this altar work a little better for everyone. They used me to buy some of the paper they use. They use a lot of paper!

AB4: I helped pay for a campus chaplain. It’s an important time in the lives of the wallet keepers who go to college, because a lot of them drop out of the church then. It’s important to have a chaplain there to help them with their problems.

NB: WOW! This is a lot better than buying a beer or a candy bar!

OB: Some of us get to help pay for additional training for the wallet keepers who stand up here behind the pulpit. Usually it’s the coins who get to listen to the sermons, because the big wallet keepers give coins to the little ones to keep them quiet. We bills usually stay folded up in the wallets until the sermon is over.

NB: What else could I do?

AB1: There are lots of other things, as well. Here in the church the wallet keepers have Sunday school programs, a choir, Bible studies, fellowship groups, … lots of activities! And we have to keep the roof fixed and the walls painted as well.

AB2; You know, they have a really nice secretary here, but she uses lots of paper clips and stuff like that. One time I bought glue for her. Kind of a sticky job, that was.

AB3: You know, one of the wallet keepers who stands up behind the pulpit in this church is still going to seminary. Some of us help the seminaries give her financial aid. She’s really grateful for that.

AB4: And some of us bought resources to help her make her decision to be a pulpit wallet keeper!

NB: It sounds to me like we have a big job to do! Hey! They just put out the candles! What does that mean?

OB: It means the wallet keepers are leaving now. They’ve gathered together to help support each other, for fellowship and for learning together. Then they go back out into the “other world” where things are not so quiet, where one voice doesn’t get heard as easily, where crayons in another country don’t seem so important. Those who didn’t land in the offering plate will go out with them, to pay their bills, to buy their food, to get them through the week, through until their next payday.

NB: Are they going to just leave us here?

Cn: No, we can’t do anything just sitting here on the altar. We have to go out into that “other world,” because that’s where we’re needed. That’s where the work is that we need to do.

NB: Will I ever get to come back here?

OB: That depends. It’s not your decision, or mine, or Coin’s. It depends on the Counter. It’s her choice, not ours. She decides whether or not we get to do the special jobs.

Cn: Oh, here comes the Counter. She’ll sort us all out and put us in her bag. Good luck, New Bill. Maybe you’ll get to buy food for the pantry. Sometimes I go to the laundry mat to wash clothes for people who don’t have washing machines.

Old Bill: She usually just puts me in the bank. I think she likes new bills better. Goodbye, both of you. I hope to see you again here soon.