The eCrozier

I recently read there are currently lawsuits in the British courts concerning churches that are seeking to replace their pews with chairs. Some parishioners are suing the churchwardens to keep the chairs out and the pews in. As The Godfather might say: they’re “going to the mattresses” to keep the pews. While not as prevalent, there are similar struggles on this side of the pond. One church in the U.S. had to delay its building program for two years, not because they were underfunded or couldn’t get a loan, but because the congregation was deeply and emotionally divided over the choice between pews and chairs in the nave. They eventually went with the chairs and nobody died…to my knowledge.

What’s going on? We could make sense of a church struggle over which neighborhood a church should evangelize or which particular way they were going to serve the poor in their community or how they might use their property to be good neighbors to their neighbors. Those are worthy church struggles. But pews vs. chairs? Really? It does seem petty. Is it worth paralyzing the church so God’s mission is impeded? Clearly, however, it isn’t petty to those in the fight. Something deeper is going on here and the “pews vs. chairs fight” is just the presenting issue. We see similar paralysis elsewhere. For example: Boards of education unable to agree on textbooks for their students because of science being politicized; museum trustees closing down their institution because they are unable to agree on which art to display; and, members of Congress shutting down the federal government when some of the members don’t get their way.

What I believe is going on here is a deep grief people are experiencing. It’s kind of a kind of death for them. And because grief is such a confusing, unpleasant, and difficult emotion for many people, rather than owning their grief, they manifest it outwardly as anger toward those proposing a change. From my experience it does no good to tell grieving people: “Just get over it.” That just makes them angrier. Nor does it do much good to tell them that their grieving is holding back the church’s mission. They simply get stuck deeper in their grief and cut off future dialogue. What has a chance to work for church leaders is this: Take them and their grief seriously. Acknowledge that what they perceive as a loss matters to them. Then work toward a future that takes them and their concerns seriously. But that doesn’t mean, for example, the pews will stay.

In a former parish, I had parishioner at the annual parish meeting loudly scream against our proposed plans to redesign our worship space so it could be expanded to hold more, yes, chairs. I thought he was going to have a stroke. We didn’t halt the plans because he acted out, but we did listen to him (after he calmed down), tried to understand what he perceived he would be losing in the change, and asked him to help us work toward a redesign that would take his concerns seriously. He didn’t get everything he wanted in that redesign, but he had some good ideas that helped retain some of the previous affect of the worship space. And we incorporated those ideas to everyone’s delight. Most importantly, we honored a brother in Christ by taking him seriously. And he turned out to be the biggest giver in the fundraising effort that followed.

+Scott