Church tells worshippers to give special treatment to overweight or bald people

Churches should try harder to make bald and overweight people feel welcome, according to new guidance that is being issued to clergy. A Church of England book published this week says they 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 advice is part of an initiative launched this week to make churches more friendly and less intimidating to newcomers in an attempt to increase attendance at services. Among those considered to warrant particular attention are people who are blind, deaf or in wheelchairs.

However, it also warns 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. "Some pew spaces and chairs are embarrassingly inadequate for what is known in church circles as 'the wider community'," the book says.

Consideration should be given to recovering alcoholics who want to receive communion wine, it suggests, and for those who "find loud noises from organs or music groups distressing". The book, called Everybody Welcome, claims that only one in ten church visitors return because existing worshippers tend to be so unwelcoming.

It urges churches to become more professional in their attitude to attracting newcomers and suggests they follow the example of department stores in appointing customer-care managers.

The book has been co-authored by the Ven Bob Jackson, Archdeacon of Walsall and one of the Church's leading experts on growth, and the Rev George Fisher, director of parish mission for the diocese of Lichfield. They warn that churches' failure to realise how unfriendly they can seem to visitors could lead to long-term decline in the number of people worshipping.