THE HOSPITALITY HAT

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.  Greet all your leaders and all the saints ...”  - Hebrews 13:1, 2, 24a

In the Fall of 2008 my wonderful wife Debbie finally saw things my way (all husbands understand this comment, so please, wives, do not be offended; we need you to be the brakes at time to our eager ideas of what we’d like to spend money on!) and agreed that we really did need a new outdoor gas grill (the old one had at last become unusable). So, the search was on. Within a few days we were in a well-known national home building big box store and saw a great $300.00 grill on sale for $200.00. No one offered to help us decide on a grill, in fact no one paid any attention to us at all. We had some questions about the grill, and we approached a checkout operator to ask those questions.

I simply started that conversation by saying, “We found a grill we are interested in and…”  We were interrupted by the clerk holding up her hand in stop-sign fashion, saying, “Unless you have your own truck there’s a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped dead in our tracks. We lived only ten miles from this store, and even with gas prices above $4.00 a gallon that seemed ridiculous. Debbie told the clerk that we had gotten large items on sale at this chain before and often the delivery was included in the sale price. The clerk went to the manager and then reported that he, too, has said it would cost us nearly $80.00 have them deliver the grill.

Now you need to note this: at no time did anyone attempt to sell us a grill! All that was done in that store that day in the way of “customer service” was to warn us of the new, higher delivery charge. So, we left. There is another store in this chain that was only two and a half miles from our home. We stopped by there on our way back home, and a manager was arranging grills outside for a sale display, and one that looked like the one we had seen at the other store was included. As he was fastening the chain on the grill display I approached and said, “I saw a grill on sale at your Waynesboro store and I was wondering if you have the same model on sale here.” He looked up, never batted an eye, and said, “Unless you have your own truck there is a $79.00 charge for delivery.” We stopped in our tracks, and both of us said not another word, but turned and walked back to our car and left.

We checked for grills at several smaller local hardware stores, but they had nothing of the equivalent. Then a month or so later, after I had abandoned the idea of getting a grill before winter, I was in the ACE Hardware store in Verona . There, in the middle of that small box store, was a beautiful grill, similar to the one I had seen in the other store. It was also on sale for $100.00 off, but it was priced $50.00 higher than the other one because it also had a rotisserie feature. Robin, a delightful twenty-something clerk approached me and offered to show me the grills feature, to “sell” me the grill in fact. So, when I saw that I liked it, I asked about delivery charges, and she asked how far away I lived. I told her it was close to five miles, and she laughed and said, “Oh, there’s no charge for a delivery that close!”

I bought that grill, paying $50.00 more, but actually $29.00 less, since there was no delivery charge. More importantly, ACE got a customer for life. By the way, I told Robin the story of my earlier attempts to buy a grill at the big box store, and she later told her boss, who told them store employees at a meeting that afternoon. When they delivered the grill the next afternoon the delivery guy handed me a brand new ACE hat! He said, “This is from our store manager in appreciation for your business and also for your great lesson on the importance of good customer service.” I wear it with pride!

There’s a lesson here for the church: We also need to be sure to practice good “customer service,” that is, we need to care, really care, about the needs of other who come to worship with us, first-time-attenders and regulars alike. So may I suggest that we all be “ACE” customer service reps by giving those initials, A., C., and E., a new meaning: “A Caring Environment” is what every person should experience at Bridgewater United Methodist Church each and every Sunday. Will you do all you can to help us in that? I hope so! God will bless you and us for being A.C.E.s!

MY MOST EMBARRASSING VALENTINE MOMENT

We all know that young children have a basic and concrete understanding of life.  I was no different when I was a youngster. 

As a third-grader I was looking forward to the class Valentine’s Day Party.  I had taken home the list of children’s names, and Mom had taken me shopping for cards (I was sure my Looney Toons cards were the best!).  I had carefully signed my name to each and every card, and then I had laboriously written each of my class mates names of the envelopes.  I was all ready to go on The Day.  I placed all the cards in my bookbag and headed off to Keezletown Elementary School.

Our teacher had given us a clear instruction about how we were to take the valentines home that we would collect in class that day.  So, as I walked to school I looked carefully in the hedgerow until I found what I thought she was asking us to bring: a stick.  See, my family and I are from Ohio, and way back then we still didn’t know all of the lingo of the South.  One word I didn’t know was “poke” used as a synonym for “bag,” so when the teacher told us, “Now be sure to bring a poke to put your cards in,” I pictured poke a stick through the cards and carrying them home that way.

I was so embarrassed when I didn’t have a bag!  My teacher never could understand why I had brought a stick to class to carry home my cards!

I have never forgotten the other meaning of “poke” since that day!