I love Cracker Barrel. I get excited when I see their sign on the interstate. (We even invented a new travel game called “Smackerbarrel” with one simple rule stating that the person who sees a Cracker Barrel sign first, may smack the person next to them.) There is nothing that Cracker Barrel cannot fry and top with gravy that does not please me. I don’t think I’ve every had a bad experience at one of their restaurants…until last week.
I went to a Cracker Barrel in Illinois where they burned the biscuits…and the cornbread…and my chicken. I’m not talking a little over done. I’m talking blackened…charcoal. I don’t know whether the cook was having a bad day…they had just purchased new full nuclear ovens and didn’t know how to control them…or the kitchen was on fire and they just managed to rescue my dinner from the inferno before it collapsed. I just know that everything was inedibly burned…and someone thought it was OK to put it out on my table.
Now don’t cry for me. There are lots of other Cracker Barrel’s that will continue to serve me great biscuits and artery clogging gravy. I still believe in Cracker Barrel. It just made me wonder, “What if I was trying Cracker Barrel for the first time that day?” What if that had been my first experience? What if I had previously had a bad experience at Cracker Barrel (perhaps I purchased a defective sock monkey in their old country store.) and my first time “back” I experienced burnt biscuits?
Our experience reminded Michele and I that EVERY week is someones first week at actionchurch. Every week someone is hesitantly”trying” or “returning to” church. We can’t afford to burn the biscuits. Even in a time of transition. Even the first week at our new venue. It’s too important. Burnt Biscuits matter.
I LOVE this analogy! And it is SO true…Over the past two years as I was looking for a church home – First impressions REALLY mattered. Sometimes it made the difference if I ever went back. There are two extremes. One is the over the edge gushy/pushy nosey welcome. And the other is you can’t even find anybody who will tell you where the bathroom is welcome. I’m glad Action Church was different from the start.