Encounters at the Counter

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What Congregations Can Learn about Hospitality from Business

Alan Johnson

208 PP | 6" x 9"
Paper
ISBN: 978-0-8298-1817-8

Returning to the U.S. after foreign leave, Johnson began to look for employment. He had left his position as a hospital chaplain of seven years, and hoped that his 38 years of ordained ministry —16 of which he had spent traveling the U.S. teaching hospitality to congregations—would enable him to return to full-time ministry. In the process, he became intrigued by a part-time customer service position at a bread company, applied for it, and was hired. He immediately discovered an interface between hospitality and spirituality. He made a commitment at the bread company to deepen the hospitality with spirituality, while vowing to enrich the spirituality of the congregations he mentored with hospitality.

Encounters at the Counter shares Johnson's engagement in face-to-face customer service. It explores the dimensions of hospitality that can be applied to congregations seeking to demonstrate genuine hospitality, such as: the contagion of happiness, maximizing routines, renewing resources, taking time and making time and promoting the quality of the product as well as the process.

Alan Johnson, Author

Alan Johnson, an ordained United Church of Christ minister, was on the national staff of the United Church of Christ as secretary of evangelism for spiritual and membership growth. He received his M.Div. from Yale University and has trained at the Shalem Institute in group spiritual guidance.

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Media Reviews

Culinary Arts Teacher, Zona Spray Cooking School

Zona Spray Starks

Encounters at the Counter was written to help churches cultivate their flocks, but that is only part of the message. Helping businesses improve by treating customers, clients and employees with kindness and respect is another facet. In an age of self indulgence, this book quietly shares the rewards of being considerate, showing patience, and nourishing relationships [em-dash] whether they are brief or long, broken or loving, or between two people or two hundred.

Senior Pastor Wellesley Congregational Church, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Rev. Martin B. Copenhaver

This book demonstrates what many of us have long known: Alan Johnson is the go-to person when it comes to understanding and embodying hospitality in a congregation. As a blessed bonus, here he also shares what he has learned about hospitality by serving bread in a bakery. The encounter with Johnson through this book does what a good meal does - it nourishes and delights.

Executive Vice President (retired), General Electric

Paul W. Van Orden

Alan Johnson engages his readers in exciting, inspirational, and hopeful insights into the human condition, and encourages them to make a meaningful difference in other people’s lives. Encounters at the Counter is the finest text on customer service that I have read in 40 years of General Electric business experience.