Skip to main content

If You're Gonna Pray, Treat That Waitress right

Many years ago, a college classmate who had worked in restaurants for many years told how how consistently rude the Church People were, especially on Sundays at lunchtime. First, they'd make it obvious they are Christians by praying, not inconspicuously, before beginning to eat. Then once the meal ensued, they'd be very picky, sending food back for various reasons. They'd be mean to the waiter, leave a lousy tip, and then would do the worst thing they could possibly do in that situation: they'd hand the waiter a tract. Often, the tracts collected on Sunday afternoons would be collected by the waitstaff and burned in the kitchen while everyone watched and laughed.

A few years ago, my friend Tim, who loved people more than anyone I have ever known, demonstrated to me the right way to go out to eat. When the waiter/waitress would arrive at the table, before my friend even got a drink order, he asked their name. He introduced himself, usually by shaking hands. He asked them a little about themselves. Then he mentioned that in a few minutes, he is going to pray over dinner and would like to know if there is anything he can pray for for that waitperson. You'd be amazed at how much that was appreciated.

Once, we had a waitress named Abby. I mentioned to him, after she went away to go get drinks, that my daughter Abby is really named Abigail, which means "Father's Joy".  When the waitress came back, my friend told her what he had just learned about her name. She had no idea what her name meant, and we had a great conversation about her dad and the distance between them.

When he asked for a prayer request, she mentioned a very tough personal situation she was in. His response was equally personal and caring. She was moved to tears. A week later, he had a bible and nice gift package sent to that restaurant to give to Abby, our waitress.

Sadly, my friend died last year, at age 55 way too young, from cancer. Though he died in September, the last time I could have a coherent conversation with him was a year ago, at a May wedding. So I feel like it's been a year since I (temporarily) lost him. But his life was an inspiration to me, and is a reminder to me of how I can best live out his legacy by treating folks in the service industry as Jesus would treat them.

Comments

Joshua Rogers said…
Thanks for this reminder, James. And I thank God for your friend's life.
James said…
Thanks, Josh. It should be noted that after I published this, I took my lunch hour to go run an errand. And I totally blew it with an employee of the store I was trying to buy something from. Completely. Sheesh!
Jesse said…
James, your friend sounds amazing. I'm raising support to be a missionary, which typically involves preaching the gospel, yet I think about doing what your friend did and my heart recoils in fear. What amazing courage he had to be able to so fearlessly try to reach out in such a personal way to people he didn't know.
James said…
Jesse, regarding the "Fear" part. Jesus said He'd give us the words when we needed them (Luke 10, I think). You'll do fine when you need to.

thanks for commenting!
katdish said…
What a great witness your friend was. The little town outside of Houston I live in has been nicknamed "the city of churches" because there are so many of them here. When we go out to lunch after church, we go out of our way to be gracious guests, because sadly, as Christians our bad reputation precedes us.
floyd said…
My old pastor use to say quite a bit, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." When Christians treat others with judgmental attitudes and are overall rude, I wonder what it is about themselves that doesn't allow them to see their resemblance to the Pharisees.
Sorry for your loss, looks like he had an impact far beyond his life. Thanks for sharing.

Popular posts from this blog

Saying goodbye to one set of twins, and hello to another

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly.  In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history.  As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room

The Two Christmases

As I walked through the front door of the Post Office to make my stamp purchase, I was faced with a choice. On my left was a vending machine, and to my right was the customer service desk, where I could make the purchase from actual human beings. Because there was no line at the moment, I chose the human interaction. I strolled up to the middle-aged, slightly balding postal employee, read that his name was "Rex", and I asked for two books of stamps. As it was mid-December, Rex asked me "would you like Christmas stamps, or...". Once I realized he wasn't about to complete the sentence, I looked down and saw that he was holding some very un-Christmas-like stamps bearing images of the Liberty Bell and the word "Forever." Knowing that my wife had planned to mail several Christmas cards, I told him "One of each." To my surprise, the decision-making did not stop there. Rex hit me with a follow-up: he held up two types of stamps: one had a pi

Embarrassing video clip--John Cougar

I recently stumbled across some Youtube gold: a live performance by John Mellencamp when he was Johnny Cougar. He appears to be have been about 23, and he's singing "Ain't even Done With The Night", in front of a fairly unresponsive crowd with Bobby Bare (?!) in the front seat. Cougar/Mellencamp is dressed in a nerdy sweater and generally bears no resemblance to the singer as we knew him just 5 years later. He looks a lot more like Potsie from Happy Days than the guy who sang "Pink Houses". Certainly, there is no way to watch this and make a connection to the guy whose song "This is Our Country" beat us to death by overuse in pickup truck commercials. But the real entertainment value from this clip comes from the guys behind Cougar. In hot-pink tuxedos, there are 5 Pips-like backup dancers/singers who don't sing, but clap their hands real well. They essentially spend the entire song performing cheerleader dance routines not unlike those