Strong Gentleness IV

Today we will conclude the series on Strong Gentleness and the need of gracious etiquette in the Christian's thriving life. Thank you for your input and help. Obviously we are all feeling the "incivility" of our land.

Dining out with a friend last evening two young men held the doors for us to enter the restaurant. I thanked them and huge smiles spread over their faces. When I had been shopping in the grocery store I was helped by kind employees who went far beyond my expectations. Suddenly I realilzed I was being showered with politeness. When I'm working on a writing or speaking assignment I usually have fresh encounters with the related issues to my topic. Trust me, when I am working on patience, life gets tough. So, I write to you with the joy of being treated with unusual kindness and politeness. I like it!

Hopefully all of us can grow more aware of the opportunities we have to show kindness to others. Many people push through life fussin' and cussin' because they know no other way. We know better.

Reading your comments and thinking of my own concerns for the lack of incivility in our culture I am convinced most people fail at kindness because they are unaware of others. I believe we will all find positive changes as we ourselves become aware of the ways we can help others.

When we embrace the wide open adventure of living in Christ we will pray for God to alert us wherever He has a need for us to help someone. Then every venture becomes an adventure.

In Romans 15 Paul shows us that our faith will lead us to be oriented around the needs of others...verse 1 "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please Himself."

Richard Foster wrote, "Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify pride and arrogance."

In Beyond Personality, C.S. Lewis writes, “The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself, and you’ll find your real self. Lose your life and you’ll save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep nothing back. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

I remember when I had a sweet face for everyone, but much of my thinking was centered on me and mine. That was a tight suffocating place to live. God has expanded my focus and turned my eyes away from my own little world. I lose myself in whatever I see and hear God calling me to do for His glory. Thriving, truly comes, in paying life forward compassionately to others.

Kindness and smooth flowing life works best within excellent protocol. What is protocol? It is a system of orderly rules that guide the development of social character and culture. It establishes behavioral habits by which we treat others.

Our main struggle is that the current trend of social norms run counter to Biblical standards. We must pray for discernment and diligence to stand against the flow counter to being Christ-like.
Christian protocol calls us to behave graciously towards one another and protocol provides a simple way to that end.

Through our rules of conduct (Biblically based) we can demonstrate respect, kindness and brotherly love. Everyday details of protocol in interaction with others, eating, sitting, walking and all the details of everyday life might seem mundane. Know that their impact, consistently practiced, will impact a community and a society. Protocol matters!

God invites us to experience a new freedom and a new joy that is found when we ignore our first selfish impulses and allow God’s Spirit to give us a heart for others. He wants to expand our focus and turn our eyes away from our own small world, and to find ourselves by losing ourselves in service to His concerns and people.

Strong Gentleness III

Manners Matter on the Buffet Line
Today we continue with our series on courtesy and etiquette. All You Can Eat buffet restaurants have set up opportunities for some people to "pig out". Actually a few diners have been removed from some restaurants and the courts have ended up settling the disputes. Buffet line protocol will be covered in the next few days.

During her college years our daughter worked in a buffet style restaurant. Her war stories of Sunday dinners and Wednesday night suppers with the church crowds saddened me. Seems these large groups generally had these characteristics:

• Demanded much from the wait staff with need for tables to be joined together to accommodate their large groups
• Usually their conversations were filled with gossip and criticism of church members not present. In fact, the conversations would become so intense that their young children were usually running about unattended.
• These groups would get so loud that nearby diners were disturbed.
• Rarely did they leave tips that would cover the time and work their tables demanded.
• Insult to injury, would be the groups that would leave a salvation pamphlet.

Our daughter was questioning her spiritual values during her college years. The "witness" of the church bunch at the buffet restaurant didn't offer her genuine hope in Christ. The occassional Christian diners who were compassionate and generous kept her faith alive.

I can imagine this is truly lighting up your world and you're so delighted you surfed over here to Thrive Christians blog! Sorry folks, I've been holding this for years. Fellow Christians will lament to me that they want a minstry to witness the goodness of God. Oh, we're witnesses.....but the huge question is, a witness of what?

So............I've said all that to drive home the point that manners matter. As we seek to obey the commandments of God to witness Jesus Christ to all the earth, may we begin in our own little world. Why not let it begin with every eating out experience?

Seems I keep falling on Apostle Paul's writings for wisdom in etiquette as Christians. So today let us read these words in Colossians.

As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. --Colossians 3:12

In her 1922 Etiquette, Emily Post states,

"Beneath its myriad rules, the fundamental purpose of etiquette is to make the world a pleasanter place to live in, and you a more pleasant person to live with."

May we look at buffet dining's best practices:

1. Stand in line composed. No butting in or pushing anyone in front of you.


2. Help Yourself: Use serving utensils provided with each food item. Do not use one utensil for several food items and never use your fingers. Place the serving utensil on the holder provided. If there is not a separate holder, put it back into the food; be sure the handle doesn’t touch the food.


3. Patience is a Virtue: Don’t eat in the buffet line. Saliva can spray on the food and pass bacteria to others. If you are unsure about a food, take a sample on your plate to taste at your table.


4. Don't let your eyes be bigger than your appetite: Do not heap your plate high and then you are not able to eat all of this food. You can return several times taking smaller portions.Use a clean plate for seconds (and thirds!).


5. Buffet manners are similar to other table manners with one exception you don't have to wait for your entire table to be seated to begin eating. You will probably want some of your companions to return to your table before you begin eating.


6. Cautions:

• Don't touch food and replace back on the buffet.
• Don't put your face near food to get a sniff.
• Do not lick your fingers as you go through the line.
• Don't fidget with your hair or clothing as you go through the line.
• Don't try to carry everything at once, return, if necessary, to get your beverage.
• If you have to sneeze or cough, leave the line. Return after you are done and have washed your hands for at least 20 seconds to prevent contamination of the serving utensils.
• Roll up long sleeves that may dangle into the food. Coats, jackets and long sleeves can drag and contaminate the food.
• Accompany children to the buffet line. Be sure children use serving utensils, not their hands and fingers, and don’t eat in line or cough on the food.

I'm loving the great comments this series is generating. Please share your opinions here.

How about you?

What ticks you off?

What works well for you?