....Mystery worshipper??

Good evening Splodgekins! 

As you'll probably know, I'm new in my town. So I was trying to think of ways I could meet some new people and make some friends- so I thought joining a ukulele group would be a good idea since I like ukuleles and people who play ukuleles. There is a group in my town, but unfortunately the times that they meet are usually in my working hours. So ....I sent them a message asking if they meet at any other times. I haven't got a reply yet, and I'm not really expecting one for another couple of days. 

So I started searching for choirs instead. Unfortunately there isn't one that works well with my job, so there isn't one I could find. But I did find something extremely strange.

....you know mystery shoppers, right? Where somebody is hired by a company to make sure that some people are doing their jobs properly? Well this was... the mystery worshipper. There were ratings for the sermon and how good was the choir and the after sermon coffee... Like... literally. It's such a strange concept to me. Because really, its a totally different scenario to if you were going shopping or buying age restricted products or going to the theatre which are the only other times I've had contact with mystery shoppers. 

here's a link to the mystery worshipper's website (Turns out its an actual organisation) if you fancy feeling a little more confused http://www.shipoffools.com/mystery/index.html 

Later on, I phoned my grandma, and after I'd told her what I'd been up to this week, I decided to ask her about the mystery worshipper oddness, as she was a regular churchgoer and might have heard about it. She told me that she had but that she was also a little confused as to why it existed.

My reasoning was that you can't really review a church like you can most other things, because it requires everyone who is reviewing and reading the review to have the same basic set of values; like if you're reviewing a restaurant, you can generally agree on whether or not the food is good, or whether or not the waiting on staff were polite and efficient or not. But given how there are so many different denominations of church, and people go to church expecting so many different things for different reasons, that a review is almost completely redundant...right? 

The only reason I can think of that this mystery worshipper might be helpful is if you are new to an area and are looking for a church to join- but having said that you're more likely to go to a church that is a denomination you're used to, even if it has a poor review rather than go to one that isn't your denomination right? Purely for the familiarity if nothing else. 

I realise that as a humanist/secularist/atheist, I'm not best placed to comment on the worshipping habits of those who are practising any religion, but I think my point still stands. I'm not commenting on the worship itself, but on the idea that someone thinks its a good idea to... well, judge it! 

What do you think? Would you find a mystery worshipper's review helpful? Or do you think its a bit ethically dubious to be secretly infiltrating congregations? Let me know in the comments! 

Today, this is me:

See you tomorrow!

-Rosa

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