Christian Currency (or Christianity and the art of tipping with the Gospel)

I work in a restaurant. I wait tables. I make money by waiting tables. I live by waiting tables. Thats all the money I make. I live off of what people give to me. The government expects that people will give me money. They tax me for that money (hypothetical though it may be). Hourly wage? That means very little, in fact it means next to nothing. The government taxes the ever -loving crap out of my hourly wages.
Tips! Tips is where it is at for the server.
Its hard work living off of the generosity of others. Its demeaning at times, at least for me. I provide a service and the amount I am rewarded for that service is completely objective depending on:
1) the sympathy of the customer for my financial situation
2) the class (not social class but class as in the content of their character) of the customer
3) the mood of the customer
4) the customer's knowledge of the inner working of the tipping/waiting world
5) every other employee in the restaurant (getting an hourly wage) doing their job so that I can do mine.
Its a bizarre and unpredictable business. I want out of it as soon as I can! But I've been saying that for 5 years and here I am...
All this to say, the tips servers get from customers are their means of income. Every dollar counts and every dollar is appreciated.
Which brings me to the point of this blog:
Dear Christians:
When you tip using Christian tracks (those little booklets that contain the gospel with pictures and or amusing* anecdotes) you're generally not accomplishing your intended purpose. Do I doubt that a soul can be saved by a track? Absolutely not. BUT in our generation of skepticism people don't read them and people don't care. You have to earn respect before people are gonna take the time to read something like that.
So if you act like a jerk, if you're demanding and short tempered, if you're argumentative, or if you don't tip well it doesn't matter what that piece of paper says. Your server won't read it. If he/she does they will generally have a negative view of Christianity because you contradicted yourself.
All servers want is money. That is the truth. I have seen so many extra pieces of paper thrown away because they had nothing to do with the one thing the server is there for: $money$.
Seriously. It doesn't matter what it is; it gets thrown away at best and ridiculed mercilessly at worst.
You wanna be a witness? You wanna impact people with the gospel? Live your life for Christ. Care for each person as a individual who's needs and wants are more important than your own. Serve people. Build relationships. You earn the right to share the gospel through it being active in your life. If Christ isn't present in your life than no one is going to want to hear about Him redeeming theirs. By leaving a track (especially if it supplements a decent tip) you only piss people off, it may make you feel better about yourself but it leaves Christians with whom these servers have a relationship picking up the pieces.
Sundays are the worst. I come into work after a busy Sunday to servers grilling me about why some Christian was either obnoxious or demanding or rude or a bad tipper and then they left a track. "Why would anyone do that?"
You wanna share the gospel? Good. You have to earn it. Build relationships. You want to witness at a restaurant? Good. Build relationships, become a regular, earn respect, earn the right to speak, model Christ. It takes work.
Don't misunderstand me, tracks are not bad things. They are a great tool to share the gospel. They should not be used as a shortcut to sharing the gospel! The gospel is DECLARED, not passively laid on a table and left for a busboy to throw away.
At my work we would collect them and call them "Christian currency." The thought was that one day fudamentalist, conservative Christians (a group unto itself) would take over the government and then these tracks would become our currency and we servers would all be rich! It doesn't look like that day is coming. So please just tip your server 15-20%, smile, and come back soon. And please DECLARE the gospel, don't leave it timidly under a 5% tip (unless you really do have ambitions of one day making those our currency than me and all my server friends could finally pay off school and our cars).


*using the word loosely