Department stores hire mystery shoppers. Restaurant chains bring in undercover diners to rate their food and service. Churches enlist Thomas Harrison, a former pastor from Tulsa, Okla., and a professional mystery worshipper.
Mr. Harrison — a meticulous inspector who often uses the phrase “I was horrified” to register his disapproval of dust bunnies and rude congregants — poses as a first-time churchgoer and covertly evaluates everything from the cleanliness of the bathrooms to the strength of the sermon. This summer, Mr. Harrison scoured a megachurch in Cedar Hill, Texas, and jotted down a laundry list of imperfections: a water stain on the ceiling, a “stuffy odor” in the children’s area, a stray plastic bucket under the bathroom sink and a sullen greeter who failed to say good morning before the worship service. “I am a stickler for light bulbs and bathrooms,” he says.
Mr. Harrison belongs to a new breed of church consultants aiming to equip pastors with modern marketing practices. Pastors say mystery worshippers like Mr. Harrison offer insight into how newcomers judge churches — a critical measure at a time when mainline denominations continue to shed members and nearly half of American adults switch religious affiliations. In an increasingly diverse and fluid religious landscape, churches competing for souls are turning to corporate marketing strategies such as focus groups, customer-satisfaction surveys and product giveaways.
Read it all from the front page of the Weekend Journal section of today’s Wall Street Journal.
“Ship of Fools” has been doing “Mystery Church” investigations for years, I don’t know if they still do, but I think someone hit a church in Charleston SC within the last year.
As far as I know, no one gets paid, just a fun thing to do..
Grandmother
Yes. Mystery Worshipper is running strong on their website. Maybe your parish has been reviewed.
http://www.ship-of-fools.com/mystery/usa.html
thanks for posting this article and bringing a smile to my face…it’s 1:30am…i’m in children’s hospital sitting with my daughter who has been quite ill…i haven’t slept for 2 days…and as i’m reassuring my daughter through her fitful sleep, i’m reading the church summaries from ship of fools.com and i have a confession to make…i did think about the quality of a church once in its bathroom…let me explain…i’ve been to several workshops at willow creek church and i have always found them to be exemplary…every detail considered…at a break during one meeting, i visited the ladies’ room…and as I unrolled the toilet paper, i realized that they didn’t use those toilet paper holders that drive women, in particular, crazy…the ones that will only rotate 1/4 of a turn at a time causing you to only be able to tear off a square of toilet paper for each rotation…a plus in my book…and then came the real quality revelation that separated willow creek from the tons of other excellent churches i’d visited…the toilet paper roller didn’t allow me to unroll several sheets at a time of stock janitorial bathroom tissue but offered the same soft fluffy tissue that were on the holders in the homes of many of my friends…and (i’m embarassed to admit this but i am sitting up in a children’s hospital with no sleep) i actually thought…willow creek really is thinking about the largest issues to the tiniest details like the comfort of toilet paper…how funny that there are actually people who think about these things on purpose…thanks for that needed smile tonight.