Does your church have pews?

[Troubledwords]

Taking an non church going friend to visit a cathedral last night, and explaining to her that they had removed the pews, not only there but in a lot of churches these days.

Has your church taken out pews or do you still have them? If they've been removed do you miss them?

We still have pews in my church.

We still have pews. Victorian Anglican building.

Don't know what else to say really- some churches need the sitting space, others want tradition, some want a more flexible area and some have a "dig heels in" PCC who will defend pews with every breath!

The RC church I go to has pews.

No pews for us. Our building wasn't built as a church though, so it never had pews. It works for us - we use the space for community things so it's great to be able to pack the chairs away or arrange them in different formats as needed.

No, no pews! They were taken out years ago, although the 'balcony' area still has them in steps. These days we are doing a 'home church' model, so our 'chairs' are comfortable sofas.

No pews at mine. They aren't very practical, chairs can be moved for playgroups or longer informal prayer meetings or alpha so people can sit in groups.

We're lucky in that we have a very large building with a new (huge) stage area, a separate church hall, a meeting room, three vestries/ side chapels and a hospitality area.

Pews in our church and all of the other four benefice.

My church meets in a rented space so we have ordinary chairs and we actually sit in a circle as we practice a participatory style of church as per 1 Corinthians 14:26.

My church (United Reformed) took out the pews about 25 years ago. We have chairs now. We clear them away after every service as a variety of community groups use the space. We have five yoga classes and two line dance classes on every week as well as lots of other events.
A big advantage of chairs is that we only put out about 70 each week and we expect about 50 to 60 people at a Sunday service. It means people are sitting together and not spread out.

Our Anglican church building is thirty years old and never had pews.

I hate sitting with other people, and sit with my DH, and a possible selected few, in a quiet corner.
I'd have to pick up a chair and move at your church OldJohn !

I think I'd find that awkward too, until I got to know people and I guess people would still have their preferred seats.
However I'd find sofas worse, sitting next to a random person is one thing, but sitting next to them on a sofa? No.

I do have random people sit next to me though, but I go early to sit where I want, and as its a full church people sit wherever there's space.

Churches tend not to cater very well for the introverts, socially awkward, shy or non-joiner-in!

My DH would agree with you there!

All three of mine have pews. I managed to remove the ones in my last church and still bear the scars of those who didn’t like any change.

Our Rector gleefully tells the tale of his previous church, where he removed all the pews without a faculty...and lived to see another day.

I think I'd be on the anti removal committee nowadays. I used to be all for taking them out to make the space more user friendly, but now, no, I'd rather keep the pews and keep the focus of the space for worship. I think pews help with that as they are fixed in place.

Different people need different things for worship though. I need to be able to move and sit on the floor so I can feel like I am in my father's house.

Ours does - I love them.

One old lady said 'I don't want my funeral in a community hall - keep the pews'.
We have a hall next door which can be used for other activities, plus a smaller area which has no pews and has coffee tables etc.

Sounds harsh but once i am dead I don't care
I will hopefully be with Jesus and the funeral is for my friends and family not me. Do pews really make the difference between a building feeling like a church and like a building? And if so why? Is it tradition or familiarity or actual religious importance?

Apologies if I offend any of my brothers and sister in Christ. That is not my intention but I do thing it is important for all of us to always assess the choices we make about how we outwardly express our faith and why we make those choices.

For me yes, at the moment we kneel for part of the liturgy, and without pews and their kneelers that would soon end. My knees might prefer that, but I'd rather keep the pews and keep the kneeling.

I can understand wanting to have a more flexible space to use for discussion or study groups if no other space is available.

Not offended at all. Initially I sort of agreed, but when I pondered on it, my thoughts changed. Most of my friends and family and colleagues are not saved. I have already semi-planned my funeral and my Christian family know my thoughts. I want my funeral to be a celebration of the Lord and to be an evangelistic tool … so, in a way, I want the space to be holy; set apart - not to be a routine ‘coffee and natter’ place - but to be somewhere that the unsaved will feel it to be a different, and to maybe question why it may feel different. Does that make sense?

Although I am with you @Geneticsbunny , it is only this empty earthly husk that will be there, as I, the essence of ‘me’ will have gone to Glory. 🙏🎉

I love pews. I think there’s something about marking out the space so that it is set apart for worshiping God and can’t readily be co-opted for other things.

I appreciate this is an impractical stance in many cases. I saw a church this week which had maybe half a dozen rows of pews and altar at the front and then a glass partition and an open flexible space at the back which I felt was a good compromise for a shrinking congregation.

I was in the church today arranging the chairs for a 90th birthday party this afternoon. I realised we have 100 chairs which we put out each week so the congregation of 50 to 60 has plenty of space.

Do you find that you still have enough for busier times like Christmas and Easter?

I think that is a plus, that you can easily add more chairs, if you have the space, whereas you can't really do that when you have pews. It becomes very squished and crowded when you have more people than pew space for them.