If You Are Obese, You Will Be Worshiped

Pulse

oi-Staff

By Staff

Thursday, August 6, 2009, 17:24

If you are bald or obese, there seem to be a holy solution now. A revelation of one of its kind. A Church of England guidance is being issued to clergy suggesting that churches should try harder to make bald and overweight people feel welcome.

The church plans to do this through a book called 'Everybody Welcome', which has been published this week. The book suggests that bald and overweight people should be regarded as worshippers with 'special needs' alongside the blind, the deaf, breast-feeding mothers, very short people and readers of tabloid newspapers.

The guidance is part of an initiative launched this week to make churches more friendly and less intimidating to newcomers in a bid to increase attendance at services. However, it has also cautioned that bald people could be "in trouble from those overhead radiant heaters some churches have unwittingly installed" and that special arrangements may need to be made for people who are overweight.

On this, the Telegraph quotes the book, as stating, "Some pew spaces and chairs are embarrassingly inadequate for what is known in church circles as 'the wider community.'" The book also suggests that consideration should be given to recovering alcoholics who want to receive communion wine, and for those who 'find loud noises from organs or music groups distressing'.

The co-authors of the book have also revealed that one in ten church visitors return because existing worshippers tend to be so unwelcoming.

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