The End of the Pew?

By: Graham Tomlin

a British theologian, author and Church of England Bishop

What is the biggest obstacle to the growth of the church in Britain today? Creeping secularization? Infighting over women bishops or gay clergy? Let me make another suggestion: how about the continued existence of pews?

For the first 1500 years of the church’s life, pews were extremely rare. In most medieval churches people stood or sat on the floor, with only a narrow bench around the edge of the building for seating. Eastern Orthodox churches never got around to having pews – still today in Russia and Greece, worshippers stand.

When they did gradually get introduced, pews were a mixed blessing. They were intimately connected with social division and hierarchy, with pews ranked according to social standing. The rich would have large grand stalls at the front and woe betide anyone who sat in the wrong one. They were exclusive then, and they are exclusive now. Pews today effectively exclude the 90% of people who are not regular attenders of services.

The problem is that pews render the space in churches virtually unusable for anything other than around two hour-long events a week. The building becomes a curiosity, hardly visited midweek except for a few ecclesiastical tourists who want to drop by, and the cleaners. A recent survey sent unchurched visitors to slip into churches up and down the country. 90% of them found the experience uplifting, finding a real sense of community. Three quarters said they would go back. Over 50% felt comfortable and welcomed. It suggests that half of the battle is actually getting people into a church in the first place. There is also evidence to suggest that one of the main helps in getting people to feel more inclined to visit their local church is if they are familiar with the building. Imagine for a moment we could wave a magic wand and all fixed pews could be removed from churches up and down the country. Churches could then develop into open, attractive space that could become a resource for their local community. This has a number of key benefits.

At the most basic level, it could become a source of income for the church that would help it fund extra staff, such as a youth worker, administrator or community pastor. Football clubs faced this same issue in the 1970s. Clubs began to realize they were sitting on stadia that were only used on Saturday afternoons and occasionally for night matches. So they began to excavate space under the stands and build on the car parks to provide conference facilities, cinemas, bars, anything that would increase revenue for the club, realizing that it was a criminal waste of resources to sit on a building that was used so seldom.

Removing pews would also make churches more welcoming. With the best will in the world, whoever designed pews did not have comfort uppermost in their minds. Many clergy during a dull sermon have at least had the reassurance of knowing that pews are very hard to fall asleep in.

More importantly for the church itself, opening the building for local community use makes it friendly, rather than foreign, territory. Local groups - further education sessions, fitness classes, after-school clubs and the like - could begin using the building regularly. Increasing numbers of churches are taking out the pews and not looking back. They are now imaginatively reordered, well decorated and lit and provide flexible, attractive meeting space for all kinds of local uses. If local people are used to visiting the church for all kinds of other activities, as they did in the Middle Ages and before, the idea of entering the building for Christian worship rather than just the gardening club becomes a little less scary.

It also makes the space much easier to use for the church itself. Any church wanting to run its own prayer groups, meditative worship, after school club, fund-raising dinners, marriage preparation sessions, suddenly has flexible, pleasant space in which to do. Our church in Lon-don – St Paul’s Onslow Square - removed the pews so that at various times it operates as a drop-in homeless centre, a venue for marriage preparation courses, conferences, theology classes, and on Sunday of course for worship that attracts many in their 20s and 30s attract-ed at least partly by warm, open, attractive space.

Is this yet another example of the church forsaking its rich heritage for something trendy and fleeting? Nothing of the sort. How many cathedrals have pews? Precisely. Pews were a modern invention that served the mission of the church at one time, but arguably no longer do so today. As Sir Roy Strong, former Director of the V&A says: “until the twentieth century, the country church could be altered and adapted in response to the religious changes that affected the Church of England. Now the church is all too often frozen in time.” This is an argument for the return to proper old traditions of the church, with churches as genuine community spaces, for the service of the whole community and the mission of the church.

Such a change need not sacrifice a sense of the sacred. A gentle nudge that this is not just another functional building, but a place where prayer has been offered for centuries, a reminder that even in the middle of an exercise class, we are in the presence of God. If we are serious about the survival and future of the church, we need to thank the pews for their sterling service, but tell them politely that their day is over.

Graham Tomlin

http://grahamtomlin.blogspot.com/

The End of the Pew?

By: Council President, Hayley Lake

A big thank you to all those who assisted with removing pews on Sunday. God provides; we had lots of help and it went exceptionally fast. We will be using the chairs from the Gathering Place for service for the next few weeks. We are doing this to give you the opportunity to assess whether you would like to keep the chairs, which would allow us more flexibility and freedom in our services, or return to using the pews. Personally, I have always been a fan of pews, but I am trying to keep an open mind to the idea of chairs being more welcoming to younger people - and they are more comfortable. Also, another consideration is that if we return the pews, these are held in place by screws in the floor. Once the pews are screwed back into the floor, we are committed to these. If we ever want to use chairs, there will be holes in the carpet.

In addition, the choir loft has been removed. This, too, has been done to provide more flexibility with worship. I realize that there are some who are not in favor of this, but with a fixed choir loft there is no flexibility. Keep in mind that we have risers and it will take the choir and Jeff working together to find the best use of this area. None of this was intended to blindside anyone; however, with the carpet being installed, some immediate decisions needed to be made. I think that this may be the opportunity to get outside our comfort zone and try something new. As a teacher, when I have students who are unhappy about an assignment that challenges them, I always tell them, “You grow when you get pushed outside your comfort zone.”

“We are the Church”

Sincerely,

Hayley Lake-Hoerner

I Love to Tell a Story

When my children were small and it was time for bed, we had, as many families do, a ritual story time together. Sometimes they would ask me to tell them about my life when I was growing up, sometimes it would be a selected book but sometimes we would collectively create our own made up story. Lying in their beds with only the dim glow of the eternal nightlight, I would begin….. Once upon a time.”

The story that began to come alive wasn’t all that interesting nor creative. What was of value was watching them in eager anticipation of joining in, eager to move it forward, eager to be apart of the whole. And so they did.

Beginning I would set the scene and perhaps the characters and then stop. Immediately one of the kids would jump in to add their own twists and turns. Speaking from their own place of nonsense, reality and fantasy, weaving and extending the story until at some place they too would stop and wait for a brother or sister to continue until all had spoken and the story was born.

How important it is that each of us help tell the story, our story and Jesus story. From our places of nonsense and reality we are encouraged to tell and share the story into the larger context of our living and our dying. To tell our story in the context of God’s grace in order to see we really are more alike than we are different, in order to develop a unity and cohesiveness for and with each other.

In my time at LCM I have had the opportunity to hear stories, your stories. Stories of fear, hope, joy, disappointment and love. It is important that we share our stories ground in the love of Christ. In telling our story you not only connect the past with the present but you help give vision and hope for the promised future.

I miss those story nights with my children, but I am also encouraged that the tradition continues in their lives and the lives of their children yet today.

The hymn writer reminds us, “I Love To Tell The Story of Jesus and His Love.” May it also be so among us.

Pastor Mike Grabenstein

Pulpit Supply

Retirement

After a very long and cold winter, I think we can safely assume that the snow and cold are behind us. Or at least the snow. The Community Garden is open, and gardeners are busy already. Our Northwest Intermountain Synod will elect the new bishop that will serve us for the next 6 years. And your pastor’s last Sunday is May 7. Somethings will change, some will stay the same.

Pastor Mike Grabenstein will be your Sunday Pulpit Supply preacher until the synod finds an interim pastor or a pastor to serve in a transitional capacity. Things will be different on Sunday mornings: sermons might be longer, the order of service may change, there may be new songs to sing. I know that change can be stressful but practice taking these small changes in stride. Bigger ones are on the way.

When you call a new pastor, he or she may be married or single, may have children or not, gay or straight, may or may not have a spouse that can be involved in the life of the congregation. I hope you respect boundaries and encourage your new pastor to take 2 days off a week and all their vacation time. Part of a pastor’s job is to be happy and healthy and that only happens when they take time off, care for their loved ones, exercise regularly and practice self-care. A stressed-out pastor does not do good ministry.

Change is stressful and it takes time to adjust to new things. But you, as a congregation and as individuals, have weathered much more difficult changes than what will come in the next several months. So, I am confident that you will make the next pastor feel as loved and appreciated as you have me. I know that you have much good ministry to do in this neighborhood and in the world. And that is what stays the same: God blesses us to be a blessing to others. The grace of God is the foundation of who we are and what we do. And that never changes.

God bless you all,

Pastor Bob Albing (ret.)