Church uses mannequins to enforce social distancing and so much more…

“The Church of the Listening Fellowship” has promised, upon opening, to enforce social distancing by filling every other seat and row, with a mannequin.

“I was inspired by that luxury restaurant in Virginia that plans to use mannequins dressed in 1940s garb” said Senior Pastor Manny Kinn.

“We originally planned to place church greeters strategically throughout our pews to help people distance,” explained Pastor Kinn, “Sadly we had to ditch it after medical experts stated that this would have significantly increased the chance of people having heart-attacks during the services.”

The church announced the plan on its angelfire page and sadly informed its members that the following activities would no longer take place:

1. Greeting time
2. Shaking hands with the person next to you
3. Passing the collection plate
4. Mary Clarence sitting in the same seat for the past 25 years.

“With the exception of one individual, the response from our congregation has been overwhelmingly positive,” stated Pastor Kinn proudly, “and it’ll be nice to have the church looking full again.”

The youth pastor also expressed his delight, “I’m looking forward to preaching every now and then in this new way and having half the congregation paying attention!”

Even the angry associate pastor saw this plan as a win, “It’ll weed out those weak-willed people who are scared of mannequins. We don’t need their kind in our church.”

However, Pastor Joel Simmons of the Baptist church down the street was critical, “It’s just a cheap gimmick to get people to attend.  We don’t need no mannequins to keep people sitting apart in our church.”

No word yet on whether or not the mannequins will wear facial masks or rubber gloves.

Reporter: The lonely rogue