By John B. Chilton
Paper or plastic? Booth or table? Pew or chair?
Two historic Episcopal Churches have done something that caught my eye. They each made the decision to switch from pews to chairs. In one case it was to improve the quality of worship. In another case, it was to make the nave a multipurpose space for mission. At least one of them faced resistance and conflict with the change. For reasons that will become be obvious below, I emailed these news items to my friend at St. Swithen’s by the Exit Ramp.
My earliest memories of church are of the family sitting in the pew. The pew is a bit like a booth at a restaurant. Few of us have booths at home, but when we go out to eat we favor snuggling up in a booth. It’s different. It’s more private. It better defines your space. It’s your home away from home. But a booth at home isn’t necessary for those purposes.
It’s the same with a church pew. Your family can sit together. A child can squirm or lay his head on dad’s lap. As you get older you and your friends can scrunch up together on a pew. There’s an intimacy. I didn’t meet my first girlfriend on a church pew, but it was kind of similar. The church youth group went on a field trip and we were crowded together in the backseat of the youth leader’s car. I doubt that I would have had the courage to ask her, or anyone, to the Senior Prom if it hadn’t been for that incident.
But, getting back to pews. Our church burned down when I was a teenager. Mom and I saw the violent lightening strike and heard the siren of the fire trucks. From a distance of half a mile we could see the flames of the wood structure shooting up in the sky. The only thing that was left was the speakers from the electric organ. They’d been stolen the week before and were later recovered. The old building had pews and a choir loft. When the church rebuilt there were choices to make. They decided to stay with a choir loft but to switch to chairs. Both seemed like a good idea to save space.
The loft might have been used initially – I don’t know, I was off to college by then. But it turned out the spiral staircase was impractical so the choir now sits on ground level with the congregation. The idea of the chairs, I presume, was to make the worship space more flexible and multipurpose. But on my return visits the chairs have always been in the same place. Except to accommodate the relocation of the choir. I heard recently the congregation decided to turn the entire orientation of the church around by moving the altar to the other end. Now you don’t face the empty choir loft and the latecomers as they enter. Having chairs made the reorientation easier.
Not so long ago, I was a member at St. Swithen’s by the Exit Ramp. The church has a square nave. The orientation is on the diagonal with the narthex (such as it was – that’s a long story) in one corner and the altar towards the opposite corner. The main aisle follows this diagonal. If you are still with me in imagining this configuration, you might be able to imagine that arranging the seating is tricky. As you move along the aisle from altar to narthex your pews have to get shorter. In the longest rows a single pew would be impractically long.
On top of all this St. Swithen’s did not have a parish hall. We were often moving the pews aside in order to hold parish dinners. (We liked to eat.) Restoring the pews to their proper location for Sunday service was not easy.
There’s more. The pews were donated by another church. I still remember us driving up to the warehouse with a 13 foot U-Haul. And then scrambling to rent an additional 30 foot U-Haul when we found the 13 footer was laughably small for the task. A sainted Junior Warden with some carpentry skill had made them work in the worship space.
When the time came that the parish budget allowed us to replace those pews we faced the choice. Pews or chairs? Did I once write that apparently any kind of conflict causes some people to leave the church? I’m not sure anyone did on this occasion, but the choice did create conflict. People had strong preferences. Some people are just attached to pews. I admit, I’m one of them. But I also see the advantages of chairs. In fact, I wanted to split the difference and have a mix of both. In the end, those who wanted chairs only were the stronger willed and won the day.
But we decided not to call them chairs. They’re not chairs, they’re just personal pews. Who knew we were pioneering a personal pew movement?
Dr. John B. Chilton is an economist specializing in applied game theory. In January he will conclude six years of service at the American University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) and return home to Orkney Springs, the location of Shrine Mont Episcopal Conference Center of the Diocese of Virginia.