MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Church Adopts Local Hooters and Partners with Waitresses

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Tue, February 03, 2009
Viewed 60
(12) comments so far

More from the article:

“I met a waitress while we were both pumping gas at the Shell station. We started talking. She mentioned that she was exhausted after waiting tables, and it made it hard for her to come to church,” Reiff recalled.

He gave her his business card and told her to call if she ever felt the need. Two days later, the restaurant’s manager called to invite the church staff and their spouses to dinner.

When Reiff said he’d check with the pastor and get back with him, the manager responded, “We’re just looking for answers like anyone else.”

“I didn’t know if he said it flippantly or not, but I said, ‘We’ll be there,’” Reiff said. “I’m not sure our pastor at the time really knew what he was saying ‘yes’ to, but he was supportive, and a few evenings later, we were there. As I recall, most of us sat with our heads down trying not to look up, but we survived that first meal,” he said.

Reiff kept going back for meals, bringing his Bible along. The workers started talking to him about concerns in their lives, asking spiritual questions and giving him prayer requests. He accompanied one waitress to the hospital to wait while her father was in surgery.

The congregation became involved with the restaurant’s staff as well. A group of Rice Temple women organized a baby shower for one of the waitresses.

Reiff admits he was a bit concerned at the beginning how some church members might accept the ministry to the restaurant’s employees, but they generally have demonstrated support.
You can read more of the article here...

What do YOU think of this ministry and partnership?

(Thanks again, Paul, for the heads up on this great story. See something you think I should include in MMI? )

A special thanks to Paul Steinbreuck of OurChurch.com for passing on this aricle about a Baptist Church that is partnering with a bunch of Hooters waitresses? Sounds too good to be true? Well, it actually IS true. Members of the Rice Temple Baptist Church in Houston have teamed up with the waitresses to help serve hurricane victims still affected by Hurricane Ike.

How did this partnership come about? Actually, it started some nine years ago. According to an article by the Associated Baptist Press, Pastor Clint Reiff originally met one of the Hooters waitresses while pumping gas at the local Shell station. "We started talking. She mentioned that she was exhausted after waiting tables, and it made it hard for her to come to church."

He gave her his business card and told her to call if she ever felt the need. Two days later, the restaurant’s manager called to invite the church staff and their spouses to dinner.

When Reiff said he’d check with the pastor and get back with him, the manager responded, “We’re just looking for answers like anyone else.”

Comments

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Dale Schaeffer on Tue, February 03, 2009

I think is great. A good friend of mine in Gardner, KS has started a ministry called Love Wins in his church. Women from their church go into local strip clubs and bring gifts and build relationships with the ladies as well as the bouncers who work there. They have been able to see several of the workers attend church, and begin to show an interest in Christ. Beyond that they have partnered with several of the employees to do community service projects in the community. Check out his most recent story here: http://donniemiller.blogspot.com/2009/01/love-still-wins.html
Clayton Bell on Tue, February 03, 2009

How dare they be friends with sinners!

Wait, there’s something wrong about what I just said…hmm…
cameyg on Tue, February 03, 2009

I think it’s the way Jesus wants us all to be!
CindyK on Tue, February 03, 2009

That is certainly a God thing. It’s exactly what Jesus would do. I applaud them!!
Dave Travis on Tue, February 03, 2009

I think if Jesus came back today he would want to catch us doing stuff like this.
fishon on Tue, February 03, 2009

“GO make disciples….”

fishon
Lance Bauslaugh on Tue, February 03, 2009

Thank you for sharing this Todd. I passed this story on to many! This is what being the church is all about!! BTW..Great Job with Innovation3
tweed on Tue, February 03, 2009

I think this is so cool that the hooters mgr invited the church staff and the staff went. Shouldn’t we be getting these invitations more often if we are being salt?

Funny, the comment that stuck out to me most was how the church staff, at that first lunch at Hooters, sat with their heads down.

Were they that sheltered that they hadn’t seen shorts and tight tank tops everywhere they go??? Was God going to send lightening down if they actually saw something and were tempted to impure thoughts? Do they have such huge sexual desires that just the sight of a hooters waitress would send them on a spiral to sin and debauchery? Or were they worried that the other staff would think they were gawking and thus clearly sinning?

I am not saying gawking and exposing one’s self to tempting situations are right. What I am commenting on is how fragile many Christians are and illequipped to taking captive sexual thoughts to obedience to Christ. 1 Thess. 4:4 “that each of us learn to control his own body in a way that holy and honorable, not in passionate lust”
CS on Tue, February 03, 2009

tweed:

“Were they that sheltered that they hadn’t seen shorts and tight tank tops everywhere they go??? Was God going to send lightening down if they actually saw something and were tempted to impure thoughts? Do they have such huge sexual desires that just the sight of a hooters waitress would send them on a spiral to sin and debauchery? Or were they worried that the other staff would think they were gawking and thus clearly sinning?”

Have you ever struggled with sexual sin in your life? Do you know how devastating, poisonous, and wicked that kind of sin can be, because of how it can be all internal with no outside evidence? Could you perhaps understand how, in a place with a purpose of flaunting cleavage and curves, a person could be tempted to sin and not want to lift their eyes for fear of having an adulterous thought?

I tell you, it was Matthew 5:28 that helped convict my soul of my sins, and made me wish that I could erase a couple decades worth of thoughts and sights from my memory forever. And I’m not so callous as to joke about what a horrible vice this can be in people’s lives.

“What I am commenting on is how fragile many Christians are and illequipped to taking captive sexual thoughts to obedience to Christ. 1 Thess. 4:4 “that each of us learn to control his own body in a way that holy and honorable, not in passionate lust””

You’re right about that. Perhaps if we had more preaching on this instead of, “How to Have Your Best Sex Life Now,” in our churches that we would have men and women equipped to deal with these tough situations.

—

CS
tweed on Tue, February 03, 2009

Yes I do know how destructive sexual sin is. I was not attempting to be self-righteous and making it sound as if sexual sin was not a daily struggle for men and women.

However, as one who is learning to control my own body, I believe part of the problem is that sexual issues are so taboo to the point Pastors and church staff’s have to “sit with their heads down” to feel as if they are being holy. If a staff person was going to struggle, they should have had freedom to say, no thanks to the lunch offer without the backlash from others. It seems as if we have elevated the weaker brother actions to the heights of spiritual maturity.

I tell single people all the time, sexual temptation doesn’t go away with access to sex within marriage. In fact sexual temptation can increase after marriage because the issue isn’t really just a physical thing. It is a spiritual and mental thing. Thoughts and getting carried away with lust are the issues. Honesty, transparency and selfishness are the issues.

I am sorry if anyone who struggles felt I was bashing them for their struggles. Exactly the opposite, I meant to say, come on Christian leaders! Let’s not bow our heads, lets demonstrate how sexual purity can be lived out in a sexually charged world all around us.
Brian on Tue, February 03, 2009

I understand what your trying to say but I still don’t want to look at booby crack
Fred on Sat, February 07, 2009

Just another gimmick to get more people (money) to come to their church.