I was working at my desk on the day after Christmas, trying to get some last minute details taken care of before leaving on vacation. Our Financial Secretary hands me an envelope and says, "You've got to see this." Inside the envelope is a slip of paper saying that Life in Christ had been visited by the Mystery Worshiper.
You've heard of 'mystery shoppers?' Stores will often hire people to shop and then tell of their experience, done without the prior knowledge of clerks, management and others.
Our mystery worshiper was working in conjunction with a website called, "Ship of Fools." They drop in on churches in the US and the UK, rate the church's worship, preaching, music and offer observations of what they saw and heard.
Our mystery shopper, Amanda B Reckondwyth (how's that for a name!), checked out our Christmas Eve service at 7 pm. And she gave us a pretty positive rating. She liked the way in which the service was conducted. She gave my preaching their highest rating (whew!). She was blessed by the music in the service, including our soloist and bell choir.
Amanda was bothered by the dress of some of the folks who came. She received only a "Hi! How ya doin'" greeting. And she wondered why the choir was rehearsing in the sanctuary before the service instead of the music room.
Christmas Eve is always an interesting service. We see lots of C & E people there (those who come only on Christmas and Easter). There are those who are only there because other family members insisted they come. Our attitude is one of thanksgiving - they came to the service, they heard the good news of God's love in the Babe in the manger and we trust that the Holy Spirit is present to lead repentant hearts to embrace that Babe as their personal Lord and Savior.
Amanda rated her overall experience as a seven and mentioned that she might visit again. If so, I hope she doesn't come as a "mystery worshiper" but will introduce herself. I'd like to hear her story and what motivates her to go to rate various churches. I'll bet what she has to say would be interesting.
All this reminds me of the New Testament warning that some have "entertained angels unawares." As a church we need to be aware of how we reach out to those who we don't know, who are visiting on any given Sunday. After all, any first time guest is a mystery worshiper of some kind. And we want to be sure that we do nothing that would prevent them from making a connection with the One who was born in Bethlehem, died and rose again in Jerusalem and now sits at the right hand of the throne of God and who will one day come to judge the living and the dead.
A pretty big responsibility for any church, don't you think?
