Following the highly successful ‘mystery worshipper’ trial in December and January, the researchers behind the pilot project are now looking into the possibility of rolling out the programme nationwide.
The mystery worshipper programme is based on the ‘mystery shopper’ scheme that has become an established tool in the business sector, helping retailers in particular identify their strengths and areas in need of development.
In the pilot project, 13 mystery worshippers, who are not regular churchgoers but paid mystery shoppers for research organisation Retail Maxim, were enlisted to evaluate churches across the Midlands, all of which were unaware of the visits. They looked at warmth of welcome, length of sermon and style of music, among other aspects of the church service.
The inspectors were generally impressed with what they found, with the churches involved averaging a rating of 85 per cent, and five churches scoring a full 100 per cent, reports The Baptist Times.
Evesham minister, the Rev Edward Pillar, told the newspaper that he was “chuffed to bits” with the findings of their mystery worshipper.
Now the researchers behind the pilot project, the Christian Research Organisation and Christian Resources Exhibition, are exploring the potential of a nationwide service which would allow churches to pay for a professional, non-church-going evaluator to join in worship services and return a quality report back to the church, reports Baptist Times.
Benita Hewitt, chief executive of CRO, told The Baptist Times that a national mystery worshipper programme could be in place as quickly as May.
“I come from the commercial sector, where the practice of using a mystery visitor to assess an organisation is normal,” she said.
“I wondered if it could be adapted to churches, to show areas where they are doing well, and to highlight how they can better meet people's needs.
“We found we were able to do that, and were pleasantly surprised by the findings.”
She said that CRO and CRE were in discussions about the expansion of the programme.
“We have a lot of research to do, to see how much churches would consider paying for this, but that is what we are looking at,” she said.
Stephen Goddard is public relations consultant at CRE and co-editor of Ship of Fools, which has already been running a voluntary mystery worshipper service for the last 10 years.
