What Churches Can Learn From Restaurants
“One of the thoughts that passed through my head was that this terrible experience in this restaurant was our first time and that it wouldn’t be probable that we’d be back. Then, it struck me. If people encountered anything close to this terrible first-time experience in our church, they would have every reason to never come back. And that makes me very nervous.”
Recently, my wife and I went to a local pizza place on the referral of a friend. This is one of the only places that serves Chicago-style pizza in Little Rock. Since my wife and I both love Chicago-style pizza, we decided to try it out.
At the beginning, it wasn’t all that bad of an experience. We noticed that there was a disclaimer on the menu stating that Chicago-style pizzas take longer to cook, and that we should expect a 30-minute cook time. Since Christi and I both have at least 4 years experience working in the restaurant industry, we understood and decided to go with it anyways. We ordered some breadsticks to have as an appetizer to tide us over, and a Chicago-style supreme pizza. Plus, it was a date night and we really weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere anyways.
After we ordered, we enjoyed conversation and just enjoyed being together. Around 40 minutes after we ordered, we noticed that we hadn’t received our appetizer yet. This is probably where the whole thing went downhill. Again, knowing what we know about the restaurant business made us not want to bother the server to ask about our appetizer, but we were starving! So, when we decided to ask her if it was coming before the meal, she replied, “It should!” In restaurant-speak, this translates, “I forgot to put it in.” Sometimes, it’s disguised as, “Let me go check.” Again, that actually means, “Let me go put it in.”
We understood and continued on with conversation. We received our appetizer about 5 minutes later, which tasted like cardboard. No worries. They’re not known for breadsticks. They’re known for pizza.
About 15 minutes later, another server walks out with a barbecue chicken pizza, and places it on our table confidently. We politely told her that it wasn’t our pizza before she walked off. So, with a confused look on her face, she took this pizza back to ask what the mix-up was. She returned about a minute later asking if we were sure (you know, because sometimes you forget…I guess). We told her that we were, in fact, very sure of what we ordered. She then asked my wife, “I’m sorry, but are you pregnant?” My wife nodded, not knowing where she was going with such a question. “Your server told me that this was for the table with the pregnant woman.” We looked around. No obviously pregnant women to be seen (my wife is currently 8.5 months pregnant). We reminded her that we didn’t order that.
It became obvious that our 30-minute cook-time pizza had not been made. Let the negotiations begin! We were offered the barbecue chicken pizza at a discounted price, or the pizza we ordered at a discounted price (knowing it had to be cooked still). We opted for the barbecue chicken pizza, knowing that it would take another 30 minutes. The barbecue chicken pizza tasted pretty terrible, so we quickly told our server that we’d wait it out for what we came for. She returned about 5 minutes later with what she called a Chicago-style supreme pizza. “This is definitely your pizza.” She then decided to take the “high road” and blame the mistake on another server (Dear servers, this is never a good choice). We were a little hesitant, but we took the pizza and started dishing it up, only to find that it only had two toppings, Sausage and Peppers; hardly a supreme pizza. We decided that we’d cut our losses, eat the pizza that we got, and go home. We’d been there for 2 hours at that point, and still had some shopping to do.
Then, we get the ticket. We remembered the server assuring us that we would receive a discount on either pizza that we chose. We received no such discount. We didn’t decide to make a big deal of it, nor did we decide to take it out of her tip. We paid for our pizza, tipped the waitress, and departed with the left-overs of “not our pizza.”
So, what can churches learn from this? Well, simply put, we have guests every week that are coming for an experience and a product, much like the restaurant we visited. One of the thoughts that passed through my head was that this terrible experience in this restaurant was our first time and that it wouldn’t be probable that we’d be back. Then, it struck me. If people encountered anything close to this terrible first-time experience in our church, they would have every reason to never come back. And that makes me very nervous.
We know that people make mistakes, and it’s easy to forgive a simple mistake like they made at the restaurant. However, when eternity hangs in the balance, church need to remember that there are people in the crowd every single week that need to have a great experience! After all, we’re showing them the greatest “product” in the world! The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing in this world. How are you presenting it to people? And are you giving people a reason to leave and never come back?