Christianity,  Culture

The good, the bad, and the ugly of Chick-fil-a Day

The scene above is disconcerting. It’s a video of a man in Tuscon, Arizona who visited Chick-fil-a on Wednesday and who did so as an act of protest. He orders a free water at the drive-thru and then proceeds to give the Chick-fil-a worker the “what for.” The video was featured in the news because the guy was the CFO of his company and subsequently lost his job after he posted the video on YouTube.

What impressed me most about this video, however, is not the guy who is misbehaving. It’s the Chick-fil-a worker named Rachel. What a champ she is! She hung in there with him the whole time, maintained composure, and was polite to a fault! If you want to know why I know where every Chick-fil-a store is between Louisville, KY and DeRidder, LA (my hometown), then look no further than Rachel. She represents the kind of friendly service that you get at every Chick-fil-a. When I travel, I’m always looking to eat more chikin because you can’t beat the service, the food, or the clean bathrooms. It’s the top of the line as far as fast food goes, and Rachel is the poster-girl for the kind of service that is routine at these stores.

Let me finish with another story from Chick-fil-a Appreciation Day that is more positive. My hometown of DeRidder, LA doesn’t have a Chick-fil-a, so my home church loaded up the church bus and drove members down to Lake Charles to find one. My parents, aunts, and uncle made the trip as well. I’ve heard some stories about what happened at the Lake Charles stores (there are two), and here’s one testimony that I received yesterday:

We had breakfast, lunch and dinner at Chick Fil-A yesterday. The crowds were huge, overwhelming, humble, in good spirits, no cross words or impatience exhibited. While waiting for our supper order to complete, the manager got a wooden chair, stood up on it from behind the counter, and thanked graciously everyone who had come out to support them and eat their food. He stated that as of 6 pm, they had already tripled their previous whole day record…….and were now out of food! He humbly asked forgiveness from the waiting masses, but only got applause, cheering and a few AMEN’s from the crowd. He promptly gave his testimony, and there weren’t too many dry eyes when he finished. People stepped up and bought drinks, gift cards and whatever food items they had left. It was inspiring to witness and moving to our hearts, to say the least. We were casual customers before, but we will make the drive … to Lake Charles more often to this Christian-led business.

Can you imagine being a part of that? I suppose that, at Chick-fil-a in south Louisiana, almost anything can happen!

12 Comments

  • rachel

    that makes me cry just thinking of it. Oh why do we not share more with each other the testimony of God’s grace on our lives!?

  • Tim Linkletter

    Definitely sickening. On the upside, I talked to the manager at the Chick-fil-A in Fort Worth that I frequent every Thursday, along with my two boys. She said that on a normal busy day, their mall location takes in about $5,500 – 01Aug, almost $7K. She said that, here in FW, there were some locations that made over 30K AND had to close their doors by 4P. What a blessing to see many coming out to support a brother (Gal. 6:1) and some just coming to support the right to speak.
    Thanks for posting,
    Tim

  • Danna Rabb

    Rachel handled that really well. I think he was missing the mark on where the hate was in that video. I don’ t think that he should have been fired from his job for his comments, I imagine that there is more to it and that will come out in the end. My mom, daughter and I made the drive to Lake Charles too to support Chick-fil-a on Aug. 1. I noticed the same thing as the person in your story. All the employees were humble, gracious and thanked us several times. All the people waiting for food waited patiently, and as we approached the restaurant a gentleman told us to go right up to the counter to order, “all those smiling people at the counter, they are just waiting for their food.” A few people inside told us the same thing. We were there for a while (ran into friends and sat and talked for about an hour). The crowd stayed pleasant and there were plenty of them. We parked in the Wal-mart parking lot along with many others because the wrap around line for the drive through blocked the ability for the parking lot to be utilized. That didn’t seem to matter to anyone that we saw inside. We love Chick-fil-a and prefer to eat their for our “fast food” meals. We will continue to support their right to be a Christian based business.

  • Bill Wright

    Can someone explain to me why there are so many blogs/posts/commentaries out there OPPOSING Christians participating in showing support for CFA on August 1st? I’ve read a lot of people (Christians) saying they “cringed” when they saw the lines and the “arrogance”…saying it was “unloving”. Sometimes I think some of our brothers just like to be divisive for divisive purposes. I think of Mr. Cathy, the statements he made, and the backlash he received from Christians and think of Paul in 2 Timothy, “No one stood with me…” (4:16). Some things–like defending our brothers–should be an event in which we’re all on the same page.

    • Bill Wright

      I should clarify–Mr. Cathy didn’t receive the backlash by Christians. I was referring to those who decided to show their support of him by going to CFA received the backlash.

      • Mike Lynch

        I don’t get it either. Some believers were more concerned that the event would appear unloving or “in your face” (whatever that means) to homosexuals than supporting the business of a brother who was unafraid of speaking truth. As a Christian artist who would like to be self employed someday I’m encouraged by the support Cathy got. I am a little discouraged however to know that there are brothers and sisters who don’t have my back.

        It turned out to not be unloving, by the way.

        I almost wonder if R.C. Sproul Jr. were to call for a Visit Your Local Abortion Mill Day (see here http://highlandsministriesonline.org/kingdom-notes/five-reasons-you-should-go-to-your-local-abortion-mill/) if believers would be more concerned that we are being more unloving to those mother murdering their baby than what is going on inside. It would be awesome for something like that to happen with a turn out comparable to last Wednesday! Now that would be news.

  • Dustin Lair

    Mr. Burk I want to thank you for your extensive coverage of the whole CFA debacle. As a conservative Christian trying to digest all of this I was wondering what you think of The Family Research Council and The Marriage and Family Foundation. I don’t have a hidden agenda, I just don’t see a lot of Christians defending those organizations.

    I think that there’s a difference between being against homosexuality and being against homosexuals and I desire to be a lover of both the truth and people.

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