I just heard about the pastor in the Applebee’s who stiffed a waitress on a tip. He crossed out the automatic 18% tip on the bill for large parties and lowered it significantly. He then wrote a note on the bill, “I give God 10% why do you get 18?”
My heart dropped when I read this in the newspaper.
My mom was a waitress at a restaurant for awhile when I was a kid. We lived on the tips she received from her customers. So when I hear about Christians who don’t tip well or tip at all I get upset.
Tipping generously is a simple way to demonstrate the generous love of God on a waitress or waiter…especially if they weren’t that great at their jobs. It reminds me of Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus died for us when we were sinners, we can tip generously even when our waiter or waitress is rude, slow or forgetful.
I want to challenge you to lavishly tip like God lavishly loves us. I’m tired of Christians being secretly referred to by servers across the nation as “The Sunday crowd“, implying that the tips will be low that day. Sunday afternoon after church should be the day that servers clamor for, not cringe at.
With this in mind here are 10 tips for tipping if you claim the name of Christ:
1. If you pray loudly but tip lousy check your food over closely the next time you eat there. It could have some secret ingredients.
2. Never leave a gospel tract without leaving a generous tip as well.
3. Remember that tip calculators make everyone cringe. They scream “I’m cheap” or “I can’t do math” & both are bad.
4. Round up.
5. Burn your gospel tracts that look like $20 bills. These kinds of tracts get everyone’s hopes up, then dashes them to the ground!
6. If you still like the gospel money idea just write John 3:16 on a real $20 bill and leave that as a tip.
7. Write a thank you note to the server and leave them a tip they’ll remember the rest of the day (with a smile!)
8. Before you pray for your food ask then server if you can pray for them, then use your tip as an exclamation point of God’s love!
9. Tithing starts at 10%, tipping should start at 20% (that’s my opinion anyway.)
10. Remember that you represent the most generous being in the universe…tip like it!
