How reliable is it to evaluate a church based on its fruits?
January 312010
I have worked in the hotel industry in some way or another for 13 years now. My girlfriend has worked in hotels for 4 years now (different hotel). Many different religious groups stay for conferences and holy events. Often we would cringe when we saw their names on the calendar. Some of these groups were incredibly rude.
I’m not trying to be rude, but you may see your church on here and not like what you see. But this isn’t a lie. Any of you working in similar workplaces will probably agree. I do realize that some congregations differ from their church as a whole, but we often had major groups of many congregations, not just one.
Here are some churches that I have dealt with.
1. Assembly of God. Never seem to understand tipping. I once took luggage from individual rooms (upstairs, no elevator) and loaded two busses. I received one thank-you and a $1 tip. Both from an old lady with one bag. It was common for them to just leave spare change as tips for waitresses. They weren’t necessarily rude, but didn’t understand "thank-you" and tipping.
Note: Once a minister from one of these conventions parked in a handicapped spot. He got a ticket. He came into the lobby and threw the ticket at the front desk clerk and said that we should take care of it. For all I know, he never paid it nor felt bad for parking in a handicapped spot.
2. United Church of Christ: Decent tippers, but acted like we owed them the world. For some reason this church always seems to request every possible ammenity. Also two members come to mind during a convention. One got a ticket for fishing without a license on our lake. He brought the ticket up to the counter and asked us to take care of it. Many from this group demanded money off from their rooms because it was raining outside. I hope this makes no sense to you either. The second individual demanded to be refunded for buying her own bedspread. Ours had blood on it. Well actually it was a red stamp with our initials on it. She actually got her money and kept her beadspread eventhough I showed her the stamp.
3. Watchtower. Apparently those little pamphlets that they hand out work as tips too. For some reason the grocery store won’t accept them as currency. They treated us like we didn’t exist, unless of course they were unhappy. This is the only religious group that I know of that would still demand a refund on a room after this. A guest turned off the AC in their room. Later on that day they called for maintenance. Maintenance came in, turned the AC back on, and left. The next day the guests asked for their money back because they didn’t have AC. Wow.
4. Jews for Jesus: The worst! Their events were so poorly organized. One member plugged her toilet late at night, then blamed it on the maid and said she wanted her room for free. Wow! They had requested no service. The maid never entered their room.
5. Catholic church: We actually only had the priests and bishops at our hotel for an annual conference. Other than one priest telling me I was a "f*ck*ng idiot", they were a great and peaceful group to have. How the members themselves would be, I don’t know.
6. Baptists: Fun! But tipping must not be in their vocabulary either.
7. Hasidic Jews: Incredibly demanding. While I understand how important your holy days are, you’re going to have to give us some slack when we are trying to make our third kitchen completely kosher for your event. So Julio forgot about the bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer. He’s only human. I’m sure God will understand. Yes, we would scrub down one of our three kitchens and remove all non-Kosher items for some Jewish groups. The group never came back after Julio’s bag of frozen shrimp.
8. United Church of God: Incredibly demanding. Decent tippers, professional, and pleasant for the most part. However the church was just as demanding as the Hasidic Jews. The only church that ever requested a bar. Interesting. No, no one got drunk.
9: Living Church of God: From my understanding they are related to the above church. A little more friendly, but still quite demanding.
10: The Unicorn Church: I’m told that they are Wiccans, but they prayed to Jesus. So maybe this is an isolated church. They were good tippers, incredibly friendly, and a wonderful group. I felt like I was part of their group at the end of the week.
11. Intervarsity Christian Fellowship: No, we didn’t charge you for a late checkout because these specific members were black. It’s impossible for us to have rooms cleaned by 4pm if you checkout at 2pm. You do realize that tipping is an American custom?
12. Evangelical churches: My employees have work to do. Could you please stop trying to convert them? Could you also stop assuming that they all don’t know Jesus? One group kept trying to push the rapture on me. I said that I felt the chosen people would go through a similar scenario as the Israelites in Egyp
Anyone have any similar experiences?
Icthus: But isn’t it odd that most church groups are the rudest groups? It’s not wrong of me to generalize my experiences.
I never worked in a hotel but I did volunteer at a center where they gave free food and all the street people would come and get the free food and sell it or trade the food for crack , and I thought, how rude when so many people are going hungry, but the pastor who was organizing said that it was to be given to whoever asked and what they did with it was entirely on them. He did his job. The moral of the story is not that every person asking for food must be a crackhead, but that we are judged by our fruits and one must keep track of his own. So No, I don’t believe that all should be evaluated by the ways of some.
January 31st, 2010 at 6:58 am
I thought that they didn’t like fruits in church!
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January 31st, 2010 at 7:36 am
I have noticed none of them follow the Bible they claim to follow, nor do they know Christ. Christ wouldn’t stay in Hotels, He stayed with Friends.
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January 31st, 2010 at 8:07 am
You should hear what they all said about you. Seriously, I am in the same business and I find this very unprofessional of you.
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January 31st, 2010 at 8:26 am
Well, you can’t really stereotype people of certain churches. See, what everyone seems to never understand is that while they may be Christians, they are still sinners, and they still screw up. Even if it’s by being arrogant or snotty. People forget that Christians are just as much sinners as anyone else in this world, but they now have salvation when they die. Even Christians seem to forget that, which can sometimes lead to the arrogance. But if you try to see it as them being just the same as everyone else, maybe you won’t dread them so much. And it is definitely their job to be examples and not be jerks, but like I said, they are sinners nonetheless and we do mess up.
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January 31st, 2010 at 9:11 am
You met a select group from each of the religions you encountered. N0, don’t judge the entire group by the few! I have found in the few churches, synagogues and one Hindu temple that I have attended some wonderful people and some arrogant and prejudiced people in the same places.
One church is not the same as the next even in the same religion.
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January 31st, 2010 at 9:59 am
I never worked in a hotel but I did volunteer at a center where they gave free food and all the street people would come and get the free food and sell it or trade the food for crack , and I thought, how rude when so many people are going hungry, but the pastor who was organizing said that it was to be given to whoever asked and what they did with it was entirely on them. He did his job. The moral of the story is not that every person asking for food must be a crackhead, but that we are judged by our fruits and one must keep track of his own. So No, I don’t believe that all should be evaluated by the ways of some.
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