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Being a restaurant server can be a thankless job. Sometimes literally.
When given the chance to identify their least favorite customers, servers frequently mention the church crowd.
One would think that those who populate restaurants after experiencing Sunday morning worship would be joyfully motivated to be kind and gracious, demonstrating their appreciation for the service of others with generous tips.
If only that were so.
All too many churchgoers have earned the reputation of being surly, ungrateful, and cheap. “Compared to a normal weekday,” observes one server, “Sundays are the worst.”
A restaurant receipt went viral a few years ago, when a pastor in St. Louis accompanied a church group to Applebee’s, then wrote on the gratuity line (in lieu of a tip): “I give God 10%, why do you get 18%.”
That was a bridge too far for Chad Roberts, pastor of Preaching Christ Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. Roberts launched a website that welcomed the comments of servers who have found it hard, for one reason or another, to serve church people. Roberts writes, “Our goal is very simple. We want to create conversation.”
“Our hope,” he continues, “is that the church crowd will read the thoughts and experiences from the serving community, and that it would cause them to rethink their actions and attitudes on Sundays.”
He notes that many people fail to grasp how their behavior reflects on the Good News of Jesus they profess to represent.
One contributor to the website was a woman who waited on a group of “rude, presumptuous, and honestly mean women” who had just come from a local church. They “stiffed” her on the tip. She continues, “What really got me was that I was in a place, that very day, where I was considering going to church.
“A friend of mine had just committed suicide, and that very church had been recommended to me for grief counseling. I never went… [Those women] were the only thing standing between me and the church [that seemed] so important to them that I attend.”
It matters what we say and do, and how we say and do it – more than we can ever know.
Choose to give God thanks and praise for the myriad good things he has poured into your life.
Then go one step further. Let your thankfulness become a blessing to others. Instead of just speaking words of thanks to God, choose to honor others who are made in God’s image.
Applaud someone’s great service. Appreciate someone else’s hard work, even if it didn’t meet all your expectations. Leave a great tip the next time you visit a restaurant.
Do it just because.
Just because that’s how God honors, appreciates, and loves you every day of your life.