Fetish mapping boosts church attendance

Dateline December 26, 2008 Lark News

MOLINE, Ill. — Mary Lynn Inchone attends Park View Christian Church, but not for the preaching or sense of community. Rather, she likes the feel of the door handles and the bubble gum smell in the lady's restroom.

"I get addicted to little sensory things," she says. "I look forward to it all week." She is unaware that the church planned it that way.

Park View and many other churches have begun commissioning demographic fetish analyses, or "demo-fets," which tell pastors which "fixations and tactile cravings" are most common in their area.

In southern Wisconsin a demo-fet found an unusually high level of people with feet fetishes. One church began projecting images of Jesus washing the disciples' feet on a screen during the sermon. Attendance shot up 10 percent in six months.

"We see nothing wrong in using people's abnormal or secret desires to draw them to Christ," the pastor says. "If the devil can use warped impulses to draw people into darkness, why not use them to draw people to the light?"

Some people, like Inchone, crave milder fare: certain textures, like ribbed metal surfaces, or smells of strong fertilizer. An Arizona church found that cowboy paraphernalia was a major turn-on to locals, so ushers began wearing cowboy hats, boots and bolo ties. Attendance zoomed and people are happier than ever, the pastor says. A church in Madison, Wis., changed Communion plates, nursery pagers and more to give people "touch thrills" all through their church experience.

"We want everything people handle here to be like an iPod — you just want to hold it," the pastor says. Without being specific, he says tithes are "definitely up." Most people never realize they've visited a fetish-serving church because the cues are so subtle. Others know it, but don't mind.

"I figured they were up to something with the feet," says a Wisconsin man who began attending the church because he "likes toes," he says. "I'm willing to sit through a sermon for it."