Encounters at the Counter: What Congregations Can Learn about Hospitality from Business

Encounters at the Counter shares Johnson's engaging in face-to-face customer service. It explores the dimensions of hospitality that can be applied to congregations seeking to demonstrate genuine hospitality, such 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 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." -- Paul W. Van Orden, Executive Vice President (retired), General Electric "The Pilgrim Press"

"emonstrates what many of us have long known: Johnson is the go-to person when it comes to understanding and embodying hospitality in a congregation. 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." -- Rev. Martin B. Copenhaver, Senior Pastor Wellesley Congregational Church, Wellesley, Massachusetts "The Pilgrim Press"

"This book 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." -- Zona Spray Starks, Culinary Arts Teacher, Zona Spray Cooking School "The Pilgrim Press"