Where is the best place to pray?

Pickles and diapers, concerts and croissants, sex toys or navigation apps. Almost every service and product is tested and evaluated. With one exception: religion. This at a time when the role of churches is increasingly the focus of a critical public.

Zentralplus is therefore venturing into the pews and testing ten churches in Zug and Lucerne in a series for the time being. These include both Catholic and Reformed houses of worship. The beginning made the Lucerne Hofkirche on Sunday. Similar to a gastro or football review, the experience and the performance of those involved are evaluated.

Lucerne church experts welcome the project. "Negative feedback that might help you move forward almost never comes, or is very strong or hurtful," says Urban Schwegler of the Catholic Church of the City of Lucerne. To be sure, there has been external feedback before. "But this was never publicly available and served solely for internal training." Franziska Loretan, a lecturer in preaching at the University of Lucerne, also only knows of individual examples that date back years and were directed at internal addressees.

Even in the teams of parishes and parishioners, there is often a lack of discussion about what makes a good service, a good sermon, explains the author of the series, Remo Wiegand, his commitment to zentralplus. "There is a lack of language for it, for some it is almost a taboo". The 40-year-old studied Catholic theology, is a trained pastor and was a youth worker in Kriens and pastoral assistant in Baar. Since 2006, he has been writing as a specialist journalist for numerous media, including zentralplus.

The church service reviews appear every 14 days on Zentralplus, always on Sunday. For the time being, services in Lucerne and Zug are being tested. Points are awarded for criteria such as church space, charisma of the priests, solemnity, sermon, music and integration factor.