The familiar rhythms of the little church community in this sleepy southern town are thrown into chaotic disarray when their preacher, the Reverend Milton T. Bagston, takes a dive in more ways than one. Folk are jolted out of spiritual sleep, forced by circumstances to accept the aid of the disreputable: Luther Huckleberry and his sister Millie, spiritual criminologist Viola Trumpett, and Creek shaman Henry Wide Bear in saving their church from physical and spiritual ruin.