I ate breakfast this morning at one of those restaurants
where you place your order at one end of the counter and pick it up at the other
end of the counter. When we walked into the nearly-empty restaurant, we were
greeted warmly. The order-taker was friendly and professional, handing us our
drinks with a smile. Everything was going well up to that point.
And then we tried to acquire our food. No one appeared to be
working in the food preparation area. I asked at the counter, and the friendly
person assured me that our food was being prepared. After a few minutes, a person
appeared and sullenly began to slice bread.
I couldn’t help but asking if it was our food. No, someone else’s food. Another silent person
appeared grumpily from the back and began working on something else. We remained standing awkwardly at the counter
until finally giving up and getting a seat.
After awhile, our names were called and we returned to the once-again
deserted counter to pick up our rapidly-cooling food. It felt like our
breakfast order had been a huge imposition on the food prep staff. My breakfast
companion confided similar experiences at this restaurant at lunchtime. We both wondered how a restaurant could have
such friendly staff at the counter and cleaning up in the dining room, with
such a different type of staff fixing the food.
Similarly, at an airport parking lot, my husband and I have
had the same experience a total of 3 times between us. The man at the gate directs us to a specific
row, and then the shuttle bus never shows up.
We each have had to walk from the far back corner of the lot to the
front entrance to catch a bus. (I’m talking about you, The Parking Spot at
MCI!) The gate personnel are friendly,
but the actual job of transporting passengers from their car to the terminal
doesn’t get done.
Really, the most important thing for any business is making
sure that the core task gets done well.
As churches, it can be easy for us to mistake friendliness with our core
task of inviting people into a deeper experience of their faith and service to
the world. Sometimes we get it right, and sometimes we miss it entirely. Sadly,
when we as the church miss an opportunity, it doesn’t just mean someone eats a
cold breakfast or has to walk a half mile toting luggage. It means that an
opportunity to share God’s love in a meaningful way has wandered past us,
perhaps never to come our way again. And that opportunity is too important to
miss.
