Welcome To Subway?

Like a lot of other folks, I enjoy eating nutritious Subway sandwiches from time to time. However, their rote greeting leaves something greatly to be desired. Whenever you go through the entrance into a Subway store, you will hear all of the employees immediately say, “Welcome To Subway!” Now that greeting would be just fine, except for the fact that it’s not sincere. It’s just a rote greeting that all employees have to issue out of their mouth every time a customer walks through the entrance into their building.

You can tell it’s a canned greeting simply by listening to the tonality of the employees’ voices as they utter the greeting. There is no passion or sincerity in their voices. It’s just something they have been trained and instructed to say when customers enter their business establishment. Sad to say, a parrot could be trained to issue the same rote greeting.

Having been raised in a friendly farming community, I have trouble in relating to an insincere greeting. For example, when I would venture into a country grocery store many years ago, the immediate greeting would be something like, “Hi Mike, how in the world are you?; how is your family doing? Then the individual would vigorously shake my hand, welcoming me into their store. They would ask, “Do you need help in finding anything?” Then I would respond in kind. “Joe, it’s great to see you. How have you been getting along? How is the wife and kids doing? And then Joe would provide me some details of how his family were doing and then help me locate any product that I might need help in finding.

What a difference three generations make! The apostle Paul speaks of sincere or unfeigned love and faith (2 Corinthians 6:6; 1 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:5 KJV). The apostle Peter emphasizes “unfeigned [sincere] love of the brethren”; defining in the very next thought what that unfeigned love consists of; “see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:22 KJV).

Beloved, when we issue words out of our mouth, let them be sincere words; words of love, care and concern for one another and for our fellow man. Only God knows what effect our words of sincerity may have in encouraging those outside of Christ to render obedience to the gospel message of salvation. Let’s be passionate about our Christianity! For the eternal souls of men, women, boys and girls are at stake.

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets