Removal of pews from churches.

[Helendee]

Can I ask for opinions on the above please.
It seems to be the growing trend to remove pews and replace them with stackable chairs in Anglican churches and I for one am really saddened by it.
I know it’s only aesthetics and that the pews don’t make the church but my parish church now looks as if it’s a concert hall and not a place of worship!

Thanks for all the replies. I’m glad that most of you are happy with the changes.
Unfortunately it isn’t for me so I guess I will need to seek out a more traditional church for my personal needs.

chairs work better in most cases, for you though, not so much. Ther eis nothing wrong with seeking another place of worship which will be better suited to you. pews are obviously important part of the atmosphere for you. some people concentrate better on worship in certain places. not everyone is the same.

personally, I would keep a couple of pews as I like the look, and the history, our church has a row of the old wooden chairs that were common in chapels.

We regimes most of our pews locally and among the congregation, keeping the choir stalls and the one at the back.

Obviously for you, the visual aesthetic is very important. I'm more about the people- I'd hate to leave my church family.

My church has reordered recently and we have gone for a mix of stackable pews and chairs. The stackable pews allow the church to look like a traditional church but with not a lot of effort they can be moved to the side and we have space for community stuff. These pews are shorter than our old ones so it means there is a lot more choice for where wheelchairs go and we have a lot of people in wheelchairs at the moment. Although I knew that changing the seating would be emotional for some people I underestimated how nasty it got. If the naysayers could find a spare million for a new church hall they could keep the pews.....

Blimey that must be some church hall if it was going to cost a million!

Given that the average age of worshipers is going up I would consider accessibility key.

Two churches ago we spent 1.4mil on a new hall. That was over 10 years ago. We had property to sell which allowed us to do it. Building halls is not cheap.

Our church has very recently been quoted a cost of £1.25 million to extend and remodel the church to create community space, Sunday school rooms, playgroup rooms, food bank storage etc.

You can't do large numbers on chairs.
You can fit 10 Brownies on a pew this coming Remembrance Sunday but 10 chairs would take up more space.
Our church often has funerals where we need to fit in about 500 people. This would be impossible without pews.
Our pews are heavy but moveable. We move them to create collegiate-style worship a couple of times a year, or do theatre productions or concerts.

Ive never actually attended a church with pews (obviously have visited). I think they are more suited to traditional services where there is lots of standing up and down. Services with free worship (where people want to move about) and then 30minute preaching they just wouldn’t work for at all.

I love change by nature, but I sympathise that something changing from the previous memories you have could be upsetting. I would find an anglocatholic church, they are far more likely to value tradition and you will feel more comfortable.

Gertrude, our soft comfy chairs are square edged so they can be made into benches. You can squeeze lots of brownies on them!

It's much nicer. Pews are so uncomfortable. It's great churches are modernising. They aren't museums. Jesus mentioned nothing about having to sit in uncomfortable chairs LOL!

I'm not religious, so my view shouldn't matter, but I think it's a bit sad. Our local church is doing this. On the few occasions I've been to church (school services, weddings and funerals) I've thought it was lovely because of the pews. I agree that it's easy to squidge an extra person or two into a pew, whereas chairs are exact when it comes to capacity. I wouldn't imagine a row of chairs (unless they buy expensive, wooden chairs) would appeal much to those wanting beautiful church weddings, so they may lose some revenue that way. I also wonder whether they will sell off the church halls if the actual church is now multi purpose?

We removed our pews about 30 years ago.

Pews are a Victorian thing, and our church is older, so we restored the tradition by having chairs.

Chairs are great because we can move them. This means we can accommodate wheelchair users where they want to be. We can also use the nave creatively for community events.

I prefer pews it's the wooden smell and the feel of them that I love hundreds and thousands of bums on those seats a couple of hundred years in one place

I'm with you OP.
My memories of church are the pews, hym book shelf and kneeling cushions.
Went to visit my childhood church and was upset to see the dark pews were ripped out in favour of linked, stackable, honey & metal chairs.
They don't suit the building and I dread to think of what the contractor has made on selling them on then replacing them (money that could have gone on those eternal roof/heating repairs).
Surely you can get more bums on pews than these chairs.
If you need space, just take the first 2 rows out.

When my Church reordered, it was interesting that the biggest objections came from people who wanted the Church to stay the same- but didn't come. The people there week in week out, whose money and work keep the Church open, all wanted to do it. They could see how much it was needed.

Our 9th century church has pews that are likely to remain almost evermore. Lots of very elderly people manage just fine and it is rather pretty, especially as it’s candlelit.
I think there’s space for both with more modern, carpeted, large tv screen and chairs places with electric musical instruments and praise rock to those relics of history with hand embroidered kneelers, incense and the book of common prayer in Medieval English.

We have very typical square upholstered church chairs, which the Brownies can multiply inhabit.

A church where my daughter sings has the most uncomfortable pews, and it is cold. It is awful.

The first church wouldn't have had pews so it is a purely cosmetic issue. Do you think heaven will have pews? 😂

I am neither here nor there on pews, but I do like things which facilitate kneeling. Obviously the floor is always going to be there, but pews with kneelers do make the procedure a touch less awkward.

Yes possibly, but the church has changed dramatically visually and I feel it has lost its beautiful atmosphere along with it.
It really does feel like a recording studio of something, not a church.

But what should a church look like?
The first churches looked nothing like church as we know it. They met in homes around a common table, and grew massively because of that. It's only over the centuries since that we have imposed this look on churches and idealised it. It's more of a nostalgia thing than what a church should actually be, and it's a shame if it does make things more inaccessible for people.

We have pews in our church, but what we are doing is getting rid of the first three rows to get comfortable chairs, so that those who feel uncomfortable in the pews are welcomed, and much more accessible for those using wheelchairs too. But we can't replace the lot because our church is big and if we had chairs we wouldn't fit everyone in - the pews do mean people can budge up a bit, especially at Christmas when it's rammed. So we're trying to be practical about both. Having the first rows chairs does mean the space will be much more flexible, we'll be able to change the pattern etc for smaller services, or move them altogether for various events. I think it will work really well. I'm looking forward to them personally because I'm chronically ill and find the pews make me so uncomfortable and in more pain.

Ultimately church is about so much more than the aesthetics. I personally think sometimes the buildings just get in the way...

Cathedrals don't tend to have pews, and yet they don't lose any beauty for it...

So why don't we just sell off all the stained glass and choices and put in double glazing and pop down to Ikea for some plastic cups? hmm

Or hold church services in Starbucks?

What have stained glass windows got to do with seating arrangements?

Church services are held in all sorts of places - schools, pubs, halls etc. Church is people not buildings.