Beware of the Pews

A couple of years ago in the midst of a recarpeting project, the church I was serving at the time considered whether or not to replace their pews as well, since they would have to be moved anyway. Pews or chairs? Personally I like the flexibility of chairs, preferably big comfortable padded ones, but they decided to keep the pews.

I was reminded of that decision last Sunday when we walked into a church we’ve visited to be greeted by pews that had been roped off with caution tape.  And I don’t mean just a few pews.  With the exception of the first two rows, the two largest sections of pews - roughly 2/3 of the seating capacity - were blocked, leaving a thankfully thin Labor Day Weekend congregation to gather in the two remaining narrower sections on the far left and right sides of the sanctuary.

This is interesting, the pastor in me thought.  Perhaps it’s a sermon illustration and we’re going to be separating the sheep from the goats. I secretly hoped I was sitting on the sheep side. I’ve been around long enough to know that pastors are not above doing strange things to get the attention of a congregation.  I remembered the experience of my son enhancing worship by rigging a vacuum-cleaner-powered cannon in the balcony to shoot confetti over a congregation while they were singing “Lord Reign in Me,” undoubtedly infusing that worship song with new meaning for the surprised congregation.

Could it be a visual illustration of a church split? No; it turned out to be nothing that creative or dramatic. The physical set up had nothing to do with serrmon content or enhanced worship but was simply evidence of an in-progress pew renewal project. It was a necessary distraction. I felt for the pastor whose congregation had been forced to the fringes with a vast emptiness in between. In typical and I suppose predictable evangelical fashion, those available front pews had been almost universally ignored — including by me.  It was as though the pastor were in a boat in the middle of a river trying to preach to the folks gathered on both banks. And it was a pretty wide river.

In retrospect, I’d have been wiser to accept the invitation of the guy who tried to seat us up front. There the caution tape wouldn’t have distracted me every time I moved my eyes. I know: It shouldn’t have been a distraction. But it was, and confessing that is a confession of my own weakness.

The joy of worship is found in the presence of Christ, and that can happen in an ornate sanctuary or by the side of a river, either real or metaphorical. When He is at the center, worship will happen. I almost missed the important message for me inscribed over and over on those yards of yellow tape: Caution. Beware of the pews. Don’t let them - or anything else - get in the way of worship.