An Episcopal church in the New York suburbs is hoping that the removal of two dozen pews from the sanctuary will make the church feel less empty and more inviting.
St. Bartholomew’s Church in White Plains, an 80-year-old congregation that like many mainline Protestant churches has experienced shrinking membership, hatched the plan as part of an effort to create a more intimate space for worship that could appeal to visitors.
“When people visited before, it seemed like a museum,” said the Rev. Gawain de Leeuw, rector of St. Bart’s for five years. “The church seemed empty. Each person could have had their own pew. Changing our sanctuary space immediately changed the way people feel in the church. It’s an important start.”
Just for the record, Gawain+ used to post here as John Wilkins (the Salty Vicar). He seems a decent enough fellow but is way out in left field theologically.
the snarksterâ„¢
[i] Gawain+ used to post here as John Wilkins [/i]
And still does.
Ahhh… drastically declining Church attendance? Surely it must be the fault of the pews! Because certainly, everyone wants “open-minded, tolerant form of Christian worship,” right?
There are none so blind who cannot see. People who want that want to be confirmed in their sins, and after a short bit of reflection, one realizes that it’s just not worth the bother to roll out of bed, or one can spend the time indulging oneself. It’s not like you’ll be judged for it, right?
This story was posted on another site where most of the comments seemed negative especially about the theology of the Salty Vicar. Just for argument lets assume that all the theological characterizations of Gawain+ are accurate. I’d be very interested in the idea of removing the ‘cattle stalls’ or pews and seeing what the effect on the liturgical space would be. The idea of building an altar out of them has a certain ironic merit, and I would point out that the Orthodox don’t use pews as the western church does and it works fine. I for one would be interested to see how this all plays out. Especially since pews should be “adiaphoraâ€.Or course to “normalize” the experiment we’d have to have someone more “reasserting ” to try the same thing.
[blockquote]De Leeuw said he believes that a welcoming and energetic church could draw a few thousand people looking for an open-minded, tolerant form of Christian worship.[/blockquote]
I’m sure he’s right. Someone should have tried this approach before. I expect folks will flock to it.
[i] Please eliminate the sarcasm. [/i]
I hear things like this, and I don’t know what to think. Certainly there are churches that just need to die or be seriously revamped. I tend to cringe when arguments like this article seem to be suggesting because of the logical premise behind it: Any growth is good.
I know of churches who have tried to do gimmicky things like this. Sometimes it works, sometimes it flops. It either runs out the few people who were actually still coming and loyal, or it can and does attracts new folks.
The catch is that the new folks being attracted can tend to be the church shopping folks that are very flighty. Not that trying to find a good church home where you can grow is necessarily a bad thing in itself. However, I tend to have a gut reaction against gimmicky Eucharists or taking out church pews or what not (For example, an Episcopal church I know comes to mind which has a moveable altar on wheels where they can wheel it all over the worship space on a whim).
Sometimes such things do attract people and can grow a congregation. But, if there is growth, the follow-up question that is seldom asked because mainlines are so desperate for growth of any kind is this: Is this positive or negative growth?
Something that is growing can certainly be the work of the Spirit, but it can also be something else. I mean, cancer grows too. Just because there is growth does not necessarily mean its a good thing.
This has been going on for some years. I recall coming to the Sunday service in Albuquerque around 1982. It was Ascension, and everyone was coming out of the building, not going in. They were headed across the street to the college campus to do the service by a fountain there. I asked why. I was told they just thought it was a good idea. Did they do it last year, I asked? Well, no, but (here’s the great thought) “It’s our tradition to never do the same thing twice”. Now how this differs from having not tradition whatever I did not ask.
That tradition is alive and well, or just lingering without a note saying “Do not resuscitate”. The Albuquerque parish also rotated the altar and chairs, oriental one week, maybe occidental the next. My daughter does this with her bedroom, but I expect that in an eleven year old.
[url=http://stbartswp.dioceseny.org]Check out the video on their website.[/url] They love the BCP, which is “concise and elegant,” but aren’t so sure about the Bible. Oh, they read it, because it “gives us a common language and common stories that we can reflect upon together. But we’re careful about how we apply it to our modern world.”
When I lived in Washington, DC, 1994-2001, I was still Episcopalian at the time. Most of that time I worked near the U.S. Capitol. On Ash Wednesdays I would go to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill as it was the closest Episcopal church to my workplace. It always struck me as odd that they removed the pews and placed the altar right in the center of the church. Chairs were placed on all four sides facing the altar, making the altar area more of a center stage. I now live in Tallahassee but I assume that church still has the same layout.
While there is nothing wrong with removing the pew per se, I think that TEC (and St. Bart’s) won’t stop the drop in ASA until they address the reasons for that drop. Somehow I doubt that the drop is because we aren’t affirming enough or aren’t justice oriented enough. I believe that the drop is due to the fact that we aren’t calling enough people outside of themselves.
It seems to me that we are offering too much “inclusion” and not enough transformation. We are offering too much “I’m OK; your’re OK” and not enough “take up your cross and follow me.”
People won’t expend too much time, money, or effort to be told that they are OK. We all instictively know that we aren’t OK. Deep down, we know that there is something wrong with us that we can’t fix ourselves. We may not admit it, but it is there.
Until TEC can offer a vision that transforms people and gives them the New Life that only comes from surrendering the lordship of their lives to Jesus Christ, we will continue to offer “gimicks” in the false hope that these gimicks will solve the problem and not force us (as a Church) to look too closely at what we believe and are offering.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Regarding my #9 post, see particularly [url=”http://www.stmarks.net/worship/experience.html”]http://www.stmarks.net/worship/experience.html[/url], “If one had to name three things that make the St. Mark’s worship experience stand out, it would probably be the fact that we worship in the round, that we share an open communion, and the degree of lay participation.
[b]Worship in the Round[/b]
“Worshiping in the round adds a powerful dynamic to our weekly worship experience, by allowing those gathered to face one another during the celebration of the Eucharist. Open communion reminds us and our visitors that St. Mark’s is an open community and that all are invited to the Lord’s table, ‘wherever you are on your faith’s journey, wherever you have come from and wherever you are going to, whatever you believe, whatever you do not believe, all are welcome to partake of the Lord’s meal. This is God’s meal not ours.’ “
[blockquote]Worshiping in the round adds a powerful dynamic to our weekly worship experience, by allowing those gathered to face one another during the celebration of the Eucharist.[/blockquote]
Ah . . . the celebrating community celebrates itself.
Is not there something about rearranging the deck furniture on the Titanic? Many churches prefer to die than to make real changes.
Well I think the removal of extraneous pews is a splendid idea. From Richard Giles [i]Re-Pitching the Tent[/i]: “The horizontal emphasis of any sizeable floor area uninterrupted by furniture has a restful effect which recalls us to tranquility of spirit in a frantic world. It is an antidote to busy-ness, and at a time when every square metre of floor area has to justify its existence, [b]the sheer extravagance of space can remind us of the extravagant love of God[/b].â€
So just think of it that way. Empty Episcopal church buildings remind us of the extravagant love of God.
From the bottom of the church web site’s front page:
And of course, the good Roshi is a Jesuit, so often the heretical thorns in the side of believing Roman Catholics. Heretics of a feather flock together, apparently.
Need we, must we, say any more?
The “Who We Are” link is quite “interesting” and mostly predictable, except for this category finding welcoming and open inclusion:
“You cohabitate.”
Right neighborly of ’em!
flaanglican,
I served Reformation Lutheran on Capitol Hill during most of the ’80’s. My memory of St. Marks was the pub in their basement. Thought that was pretty odd.
It’s still there. See [url=”http://www.stmarks.net/parish_life/index.htm”]http://www.stmarks.net/parish_life/index.htm[/url].
“One of our most unusual institutions is the Winged Lion Pub which is open nearly every Sunday after the 11:15 service. Each week volunteers prepare lunch for those wishing to stay, often as many as 80-100 folks. Wine, juices, iced tea and other beverages are available but the unique item is our very own Winged Lion Beer, brewed locally and prepared by a group volunteers. Our brew-meister often prepares special beers for the holidays or special events. ‘Pub Lunch’ has become an important opportunity for us to gather and enjoy one another’s company.”
Check out their website in general. Interesting church to say the least.
Not everything a TEC church comes up with is necessarily bad or wrong. We should be quicker to sift wheat from chaff than to throw out baby with bathwater (which is what I think more zealous of our orthodox brethren do sometimes).
I think this is a great idea. (Even if the reasons are a bit muddled.) I happen to like the idea of multiuse/multifunction space (while at the same time making sure one does not lose the practice of sacred space with all that implies). Architecture does to some extent express ecclesiology – and what does more “space” express? (Room for God? I don’t know. Just thinking out loud.)
[blockquote]Not everything a TEC church comes up with is necessarily bad or wrong. [/blockquote]
Try this: “As this was her last Vestry meeting, our Interim Associate Rector, Kay Johnson was
invited to share her observations of her time at St Mark’s. Kay told us that St Mark’s is a
fun and interesting place. Even though she tends to be a skeptic, she found herself
constrained by not being able to use “Jesus language,†but, in the end, actually did not
mind translating to the St Mark’s style of articulation.” Found on p. 3 [url=”http://www.stmarks.net/about/vestry/september_2008.pdf”]here[/url].
As proof see, their [url=”http://www.stmarks.net/worship/weekly.pdf”]service sheet[/url] from last week.
Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough (I was skimming), but the service sheet didn’t have any horrors as far as I could tell.
Example1: “Presider: Let all who seek you, God, rejoice and be glad in you;
People: Let those who love your salvation say for ever, “Great is God.”
Example 2: “Presider” God’s peace be always with you.
People And also with you.”
Instead of: “Celebrant: The Peace of The Lord be always with you.
People: And also with you.”
Example 3: “Presider God be with you.
People And also with you.
Presider Lift up your hearts.
People We lift them to God.
Presider Let us give thanks to God.
People It is right to give our thanks and praise.”
Instead of “Celebrant: The Lord be with you. . .
Celebrant: “Let us give thanks to the Lord Our God. . .”
And so on.
Instead of “Celebrant: Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
People: An blessed be his people now and forever. Amen.”
Let’s try this again:
Example1: “Presider: Let all who seek you, God, rejoice and be glad in you;
People: Let those who love your salvation say for ever, “Great is God.â€
Instead of “Celebrant: Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
People: An blessed be his kingdom now and forever. Amen.â€
Example 2: “Presider†God’s peace be always with you.
People And also with you.â€
Instead of: “Celebrant: The Peace of The Lord be always with you.
People: And also with you.â€
Example 3: “Presider God be with you.
People And also with you.
Presider Lift up your hearts.
People We lift them to God.
Presider Let us give thanks to God.
People It is right to give our thanks and praise.â€
Instead of “Celebrant: The Lord be with you. . .
Celebrant: “Let us give thanks to the Lord Our God. . .â€
And so on.
Of course, they could actually begin to fervently proclaim the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. And in addition, they could concentrate on a clear, sober, expository teaching of Scripture. Funny thing, I know, but THATS the sort of activity that actually fills those “empty pews” – because it brings glory to God and His Word.
Radical stuff, huh?
I missed presider vs celebrant, but I was anticipating things like changing words like “Lord” or removing “Our Father” from the Lord’s Prayer or somesuch.
In this church they kept the Lord’s prayer as traditionally known, but as I cited in my examples above, they clearly replaced “The Lord” with “God.”
I just watched the video about St. Bart’s. This is the second time this week I’ve heard reference to the concept that Jesus, “…a Jewish man who lived about two thousand years ago. . . was [b]scapegoated for having integrity[/b] and returned out of love” (emphasis added). This certainly is different than what the Bible says about the Crucifixion being a sacrifice by and of God and Jesus for the sins of the world. It implies that Jesus was a sadly misunderstood but “good Jewish” man who was caught up in affairs not of his own choosing.–not, as the Scripture seems to teach, that Jesus’ act of giving himself up on the Cross was a plan for the salvation of the world that God had implemented from even before the beginning of the world.
Some folks on the HoB/D list have been discussing this concept, the idea that Jesus was a good man (but NOT divine!) whose death was based on his being political, not on his being the Son of God, the Passover Lamb, the one who died once for all for the sins of the world.
When Jesus is presented as a good man, there is precious little he can offer to transform people–just as #10 points out.
[i] Even though she tends to be a skeptic, [the interim associate rector of St. Mark’s, Capitol Hill] found herself constrained by not being able to use “Jesus language.†[/i] —#20
What has a church come to when self-announced “skeptics” serve as associate rectors . . . and are more traditionalist than their flocks? But then, it’s ECUSA.
Oh, Oh. The removal of doctrine didn’t work, nor the removal of Christian mores, so NOW the pews. *I could had a V-8!* I guess the MDGs where considered food additives and didn’t work, either.
FLAnglican – don’t get me started on St. Mark’s. The biggest problems are not the minor changes of “Lord” to “God” or “Celebrant” to “Presider.” The biggest problems are the omission of the Creed (required on Sundays and Major Feast days) and the Confession (can be omitted “on occasion” but not as a rule). Also, the practice of “open communion” (in reality, communion of the non-baptized).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
What? No pews??? What next? Maybe an [url=http://www.russianchurchindandenong.com.au/images/church2.jpg]iconostasis [/url]and some nice candles and… oh wait. Never mind.
Under the mercy,
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
An [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj4pUphDitA]Orthodox [/url] Christian
Y’all remind me of a story my dad used to tell: An Indian, er, Native American tribe was concerned that rain wasn’t coming like it used to. So the people instructed the tribe’s rain dancers to redouble their efforts. When the rain still didn’t come, they angrily denounced the rain dancers for having strayed from the ancient ways of doing the rain dance.
D. C. (#32)
It is not the removal of the pews. It is the fact that TEC has been devoid of meaningful theology and too many places are using “gimicks” (such as removing the pews) rather than doing the hard work necessary to see why the church is shrinking.
We hide too often behing “all mainlines are shrinking” and “people want a different religious experience.” We believe our own press – and that is bad for any organization or people. The truth is that we have lost the Truth. We have put too much into the form of religion and forgotten about faith and faithfulness. Instead of liturgical reform, we need a reformation.
If St. Bart’s problaimed the same faith as it did 50 years ago, it probably wouldn’t be in the same situation where they saw an 3/4 empty building and, thus, needed to remove the pews to look like it was less empty.
As for St. Mark’s, the reappraiser cry of “polity” rings rather hollow when congregations are allowed to change the Book of Common Prayer and ignore the canons at will.
The problem is that the forms we see in St. Bart’s and St. Mark’s are only symptoms of a larger systemic problem and no one wants to address the problem.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Frankly, I thought that pews were a modern innovation into churches? As such I don’t see the problem there.
I’m more concerned with the theology, or rather, the lack of Christian theology, expressed in the article and as posted from the website.
The removal of some pews seems like a reasonable adjustment to me. Anyone who has ever tried to teach, preach, or perform in a half- or mostly empty room with people spread out all over can attest to that.
Not to mention that pews offer no chance for flexibility. Chairs offer the opportunity to gather the flock in a variety of ways.
We meet in a rented space and our chairs are sometimes arranged in a circle, sometimes a semi-circle and sometimes they are in even rows.
Not possible with bolted down pews. So the removal of the pews isn’t troubling, but the other issues may be more troubling.
In August Gawain was claiming on this site that he had had
35 new people joined his parish in the last year (see comment 48 at)
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/13851/#242095
Now he is telling the press that 50 to 60 people coming to services.
If you check the church statistics, this is about (or less than) the same number as were in the parish for each year of the last decade.
http://12.0.101.92/reports/PR_ChartsDemo/exports/ParishRPT_11132008114528PM.pdf
So it would seem that De Leeuw was exaggerating (at very least) in his previous comment on this site.
There are other reasons perhaps for not having the butts for the seats in this parish. A while back Fr. Gawain claimed in his blog that ECUSA wasn’t Modalist or Arian.(Sept 8, 2007) I pointed out that it was both, referring specifically to a thing called the “Seeker’s Center” the ECUSA website once maintained, and is since gone. I can see why, it was thoroughly Modalist in it’s discussion of the Trinity. Fr. G. said it had to be Modalist since it was in English! I hear he’s dropped the Creed? Well. No surprise. Hint: Take out the rest of the pews. You won’t need any pretty soon. After a few Sundays most people realize there’s no difference between being there and not being there, except they feel more honest sleeping late instead.
Although I’ve been clear in the past that we don’t share the same faith, kudos to Gawain+ [John Wilkins] for gaining some publicity for the pew removal. If growth is his desire, press will usually gain some curious visitors.
#30, good point about the Creed and Confession. You’re right, those aren’t in their service sheet either. We say those every Sunday in my church.
Rick in LA – 3/4 empty, you say? Try 95% empty! At least that’s what my math tells me, comparing 1,000 Sunday attendance a few decades ago to 50-60 Sunday attendance now. Now that the congregation has disappeared, for my next trick…
Remember that pews were largely a function of church income gathering efforts. Before the days of pledging, pew rentals provided the church’s income and showed off your status in the community. The more informal seating (typically in a balcony) served for the poor of the community or slaves. I commend this innovation, occurring in many churches – although as mentioned, I doubt it will do much to single-handedly stem a drop in attendance.
Friends, thank you for your comments.
I want to address a couple topics. Most of you have a broadly different theological orientation than I do. I’m also in an area which is affluent and unChristian, so most people are asking me, “why bother with God” and think of scripture as being fairly abusive. So I’m starting with different sorts of conversations than those I would have with people raised by Southern Baptists – or even other sorts of Christians. It’s one thing to have a conversation with me, a Priest, about Jesus. Its another thing to go over to friendlyatheist.com and offer an altar call.
Furthermore, I’m instinctively skeptical that people join churches because they have the correct theology. I think people tend to join churches that feed their spirit and are, broadly, enjoyable or helpful. I make no judgment here about that.
The theory is simple. In a big church where only 50 people attend, visitors will experience the place as pretty dead. If you shrink the space, you can reach the point of “comfortably empty” which is about 40% of any particular seating arrangement. Plainly, the space gets in the way of evangelism. I can yell at people about Jesus Christ all I want, but if they think the place is dying, they won’t return. Most church plants usually begin in smaller spaces and then change venues as they increase.
The experience since the change has been pretty interesting – miraculous, even. Our weekly attendance among semi-regular members has gone up about 20% – they are clearly experiencing church differently. I recognize that Margaret is very concerned about my church membership: most of the new members come to a Thursday evening service, which does not get reported. The rest of the newcomers come – like other Episcopalians – about once every 4 weeks. And like most Episcopal churches we are losing members due to the classic form of attrition. Death.
The pews are one stage of a long-range plan that includes evangelism – which has to be creative here in Westchester county. TEC is declining for plenty of reasons, but I would attribute this to liturgical and musical fundamentalism and a lack of leadership (can you imagine praise music – or even Gospel – in a liberal church? I get more frustration from people because I’m not using Schubert and occasionally have contemporary music than because of my theology!). Parishes themselves often prefer caretakers to leaders.
Megachurches use business models well to strengthen their ministry: Willowcreek, for example, has two Harvard Business school graduates on its ministry team. But when I visited their church, did they have a particularly biblical message? Not really. It was a good message, with videoclips and good instructions, but it could have been given anywhere.
In sum, moving the pews is a business decision, not a theological one. it is counter intuitive, which is why, perhaps, it is newsworthy.
But thank you for the general sense of magnanimity here.