To Get 'Em in the Tent

The Sunday service was about to begin at Miami's Palmetto Presbyterian Church, and the Rev. Neil Wyrick stood, as usual, on a balcony overlooking the parking lot. Below him, pencils and Polaroid cameras at the ready, were what he calls his "spies." As the congregation began to arrive the pastor suddenly pointed to a sunburned, middle-aged couple climbing out of a new, blue Thunderbird. One of the spies hurried over and began to write down their names, addresses and church affiliation on a printed form. While he was questioning them, another spy snapped a picture.

As the same couple were leaving Palmetto Presbyterian two Sundays later, they were surprised and pleased when Pastor Wyrick paused as they filed past him, greeted them by name and added: "I'm glad you could come over again from Fort Lauderdale."

The spy system, and Presbyterian Wyrick's well-trained memory, which can connect names with their owners if they turn up at church within a month of their first arrival, is just one means by which the athletic 32-year-old pastor has built his church from 176 to 500 members in less than two years--with an average Sunday attendance of 460. His devices are cozy and catchy. From time to time, he stops the service and asks members of the congregation to introduce themselves to those sitting near them. A large album containing photographs of each family in the church is available for everyone to look up the names of neighbors whose faces they know.

If a member fails to show up for several weeks, Pastor Wyrick gives his name to a church officer, who telephones him for permission to pay a visit--to which he brings a taped recording of the previous Sunday's hymns and sermon. Wyrick keeps Palmetto's parishioners in touch during the week with a mimeographed news letter, a column in the Coral Gables Times, and a "Dial-a-Devotional" telephone service pepped up with maxims that he composes mostly while driving at night. Sample: "Just because a church member is always up in the air doesn't mean he's an angel.''

If Pastor Wyrick seems to share the old circus maxim that "the first thing to do is get 'em in the tent," he makes no apologies. He believes that only the people who are in the church can hear the sermon. "I feel that I'm doing God's work," he said last week, "but just because it's God's work I don't have to be on a mountaintop. You get the respect you deserve, and you don't get any more for sitting on a pedestal."

The Rev. Stuart Barton Babbage, Anglican Dean of 70-year-old St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, Australia, has his own formula for filling the tent. He plastered the crypt of the cathedral with gaudy record jackets, set candles in wine bottles on checkered tableclothes, and ran an ad in the newspapers: ANY CRAZY CAT IS WELCOME TO CREEP DOWN TO OUR CRYPT FOR COFFEE AND CRUMPETS. Instead of the 100-odd he expected the first Sunday night, more than 500 youngsters crushed in at 15-c- a head. Dean Babbage was happily laying plans last week for an espresso machine, a jukebox and a volunteer jazz combo.

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