‘Mystery worshipper’ project to make Church more welcoming

A vicar shut her church doors and ordered her congregation off to other parishes as part of a radical scheme to make her services more accessible and welcoming to outsiders.

Revd Sally Welch told her congregation they needed to go out to learn what it felt like to be a stranger in church.

So one Sunday morning, she shut  Kintbury St Mary’s doors and sent members out to surrounding churches to see how welcome they felt. More than 50 members of the congregation took part in the experience.

In some cases the results were depressing: one member reported back that ‘no-one actually spoke to me at all’ but others were inspired and said ‘Should we go back, we would feel we belonged’.

The aim of ‘mystery worshipper’ Sunday, as it was called, was not to criticise other churches but learn from them, insisted Mrs Welch.

She said members of the congregation had been revitalised by the experience.

‘With a congregation so committed to reaching out to strangers and newcomers, we feel we can truly be a mission centred church,’ she said.

The idea for ‘mystery worshipper’ Sunday had been sparked by her own experience one Sunday with her four children – the youngest of whom is just 18 months old – at a church in Devon. She is working hard in Kintbury to make services more accessible to families and her congregation is growing steadily as a result.

Lessons learnt from the experience were put into practice at a recent family service, when over 140 people turned up from the village, and Kintbury Morris men danced in the aisles. Mrs Welch said the best moment was when she stopped the collection plate and told the congregation they were her guest and guests would not be charged – but regular members of the congregation were expected to pay twice, once for themselves and once for a guest.

‘A cheer went up, and the singing was twice as high as before,’ she said.

Revd Richard Thomas, communications director for the diocese, said Mrs Welch’s idea was ‘inspirational’.