See the other pages in the reporting section... Index Essential notes Calling card Checklist Questionnaire   Things you need to know Please read the notes on this page carefully before you go out as a Mystery Worshipper. They take you through the process from beginning to end. Choosing a church You may already have a church or churches in mind to visit, but please bear the following in mind as you plan your visit. First, please choose a church where you are unknown. A report on a service in your home church will not be accepted for publication; a report on a church where you are an occasional visitor is tolerable, but not ideal. The ideal is a report on a church you have never visited and where you are completely unknown. Secondly, please do not use your visit as an opportunity to attack a church or pursue a personal agenda. Occasionally, we receive reports which say more about the Mystery Worshipper and their motives than about the church itself. Please choose the church you wish to visit with an open, curious mind. Finally, the church you decide to visit must be within trinitarian Christianity, which is the faith position of Ship of Fools. We do not cover mosques, synagogues, Mormon temples, etc, since they represent faiths which belong to others and not to us. The Mystery Worshipper is about the Christian Church engaging in self-criticism, rather than criticising other faith traditions. Reports from places outside the trinitarian Christian tradition cannot be published. Having said that, we especially welcome coverage of unusual Christian churches. Since we began, a good majority of the reports we've been sent have been for Anglican/Episcopalian churches (which is fine, of course), but we want our coverage to be as ecumenical as possible, so please help us by visiting Catholic, non-conformist, Pentecostal, Orthodox and other churches. If you're in any doubt about whether the church you want to cover falls inside our guidelines, please email the MW lead editor. Going to the church Please make sure that you arrive at the church at least 10 minutes before the service starts, as one of the questions you'll be answering is about the pre-service atmosphere. You will need to print out and carry two items with you into the service. These are... > The calling card – which notifies the church that they have been visited. Please drop the Mystery Worshipper calling card into the collection plate or bag during the service. If you wish, you can fold up the card, or slip it into the collection inside an envelope. > The questionnaire or handy checklist – you might find it useful to print out the Mystery Worshipper questionnaire and take it to the service with you, or if you'd prefer something simpler, take our handy checklist, which prints out on a single sheet and will remind you of the important things you need to do before leaving the church! Since anonymity is one of the hallmarks of the project, please don't reveal yourself as the Mystery Worshipper to anyone at the church! Writing your report Please note that all reports are submitted using the online questionnaire. We can't accept reports submitted on paper through the mail, or as email attachments, because they take too long for us to process. Your report should include good, colourful descriptions of what took place... the good, the bad and the ugly. We sometimes receive reports which have very short (sometimes even one-word) answers to the questions – and we can't publish them because they are... well... too boring! So to avoid disappointment, fill your report with good observational detail. Take a look at some of our existing reports to get an idea of what we look for. If you're reporting a cathedral service, please take special note of this, as for some reason cathedral services tend to produce dull Mystery Worshipper reports. Please note that we reserve the right to turn down reports (although we rarely do so), and all the reports we receive are subject to the normal editing process. Filing your report Please file your report by completing the online questionnaire. We suggest you follow the writing procedure outlined below, for your own peace of mind – and ours! > Key in your replies to the questionnaire in your normal text-editing program. > Save your replies and make sure you keep the file in a safe place. This means that if something goes wrong with the transmission of the questionnaire, you will have a saved copy of what you have written. > Copy and paste each reply from your file into the relevant box on the questionnaire. When you're happy with your report, click the "Send!" button at the end of the questionnaire. You should receive a confirmation that we've received your report by email within a few minutes. Sending your pictures Please make sure you send at least one picture with your report. Reports submitted without pictures are not considered for publication. Pictures should be a reasonable size – the pictures we publish are 450 pixels on their longest side. If you are unable to snap your own photo of the church, please let us know the name of a website where a suitable photo can be found that is roughly the size and quality of the example shown below. But please be aware that most websites are copyrighted. We will contact the copyright holder of any photo found on a website for permission to use the photo. Please do not send us photos that you yourself have downloaded from a copyrighted source. Please send your picture as an email attachment to the MW Lead Editor. Thanks for reading... and happy Mystery Worshipping! Back to Mystery Worshipper reporting   The Mystery Worshipper mug! Order your very own Mystery Worshipper mug. Click here. The Mystery Pilgrim One of our most seasoned reporters, Augustine the Aleut, travels 1200 kilometres on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and reports from the churches he visited along the ancient route. Read here. London churches Read reports from 70 London churches, visited by a small army of Mystery Worshippers on one single Sunday. Read here.