stupid christians

We finished up the Bill Hybels' "Just Walk Across the Room" book today. Though my group really didn't "get into it" overall, it brought up some interesting topics. (This book could have been condensed into a 15 page 'what not to do' guide for dummy's thing, but Bill probably couldn't have bragged on himself so much).

One of the topics centered around 'putting people first'! What a novel idea. I'm glad Bill pointed this out to us. Actually, its sad that he needed to point it out to christians, but truth is we as a group sometimes do a lousy job of putting people ahead of agendas or personal stuff. The pastor at my church hasn't even gotten this concept down, so obviously its not a lay person only issue.

One story was of a waitress that went to Willow Creek Church and she wrote Bill a 5 page letter detailing how the wait staff rotated on Sunday's having to wait on the Christians so no one got stuck with them all the time. They, as she said, are demanding, rude, and lousy tippers. Go figure.

So today after church, we go to a McAlister's Deli (where we go every sunday) and I am ordering this and that. The young girl taking my order says something to the Manager who responds 'well just do your best', and she replied that she had already gotten griped at. I asked her if the customers were giving her a hard time and she smiled and said someone was griping at her because the restaurant was low on straws or something that she had no control over. I look around and its obviously a church crowd in there, and this is beginning to look so familiar to the story Bill Hybel's spoke about. I responded "whats wrong with those christians anyway?!" She just smiled, leaned over the counter and whispered "Sundays are the worst".

Now, for arguement sake, it may not have been a Christian. Let me rephrase that: May not have been a person who claims to be a christian and attends church. But given the time, day and crowd I'm pretty sure it was. And I hope this girl doesn't judge Jesus by His so called followers.

So my question to you fellow Jesus freaks is this: When you are out and about town, when you see a cashier, public servant, custodial staff in your building, do you see them as a valuable child of God, a person on a journey in life? Or do you not even really see them at all? Do you know any of them by their first name?

Show me a parable where Jesus didn't have time for these folks. Tell me why you don't.