Mind you, where there are I am strongly coming to the opinion that we should let them have the care, maintenance and upkeep of the blinking building and we'll take the Church somewhere more fitting our needs. So be warned - if you want to have a say then you need to be ready to pay (and keep on paying) for the bricks you so love to issues dictums over!!!
Another place I visit has had the congregation facing East, the traditional direction, and West at different times in its recent past. One way saw the people and the sanctuary in the same place and the other took the table and the 'stuff' behind a wooden panelled screen. Don't have problem with this and it's a good creative was of adapting the building and yet maintaining the 'historic' bits. Seems like a win/win to me.
Yet another has removed its pews so that they can have more 'adaptable' space for creative worship and whilst the theory was good the practice has been less than that which was hoped for. The reason for this is that whilst the church does indeed have a lovely carpeted and flexible space, this reduces drastically in size as the chairs are taken and stacked. This something that often gets overlooked in that pews are 'density seating' and require no storage but once you have moveable seating you also need space to store it or you find your newly gained space vanishes quite rapidly (and there's always those helpful sorts who will stack them so high that they become a health and safety risk instead!).
So I guess a word to the wise - you will have a nice open space if you take out the pews but this will vanish once you decide to let the congregation sit and the space taken by chairs is often more than the pews when configured for BOPS (bums on pews) and the open space decreases quite markedly unless you have another space to store the chairs. Not only that but the sight of stacked chairs often makes what was once a fairly controlled, albeit traditional, space something of a nightmare unless managed well. And there's the added joy of finding yourself given the job of stacking and putting out the chairs (yippee - you're the caretaker!).
Just some off the top of the head thinking.
Pax
1 comment:
Yes. Removing pews, tempting though it seems, isn't always such a good idea in the harsh light of day. In this benefice we have three churches with pews, one of which has them quite tightly packed in. Apart from an area at the back of church, almost every other coneivable square inch is taken up, except for thre narrow aisles. Our regular Sunday congregations rattle in this space, and doing anything that requires creativity and flexibility is quite difficult. If we were fortunate enough to have the personnel to make up, say, a worship band we have little space to put them. Similarly, any but the most rudimentary drama is out. The place was designed for BCP worship and the single preacher in the pulpit.
The main reason I haven't proposed doing something about this so far is the issue of "density seating." We have several large funerals and weddings each year, as well as packed Christingle and school services. Removing pews would seriously damage our ability to host these services.
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