LONDON -- A Mystery Worshipper project that started four years ago still has people showing up at churches unannounced to do a silent critique, according to ship-of-fools.com, the United Kingdom's leading Christian Web magazine.
ship-of-fools.com launched the project in April 1998, and recently reported its 500th visit by a mystery guest. The project invites people to assume a secret identity and visit a church with which they have no previous connection. The Mystery Worshipper reviews the church for hardness of pews, sermon length, warmth of welcome and taste of after-church coffee among other things. The reviewer leaves behind a "Mystery Worshipper" calling card in the collection plate, letting church staff know someone special was in the house.
"One of the aims of Mystery Worshipper is to hold up a mirror to churches and show them how they look to outsiders," ship-of-fools.com editor Simon Jenkins said.
