the church geek

Yesterday, I did what I’ve done occasionally over the last year of preaching. I got out of the pulpit, I put a music stand on the floor in front of the sanctuary, and I preached from there. It provides me with a bit of freedom and flexibility that I simply don’t have when I’m in the pulpit. I also feel like I am better able to connect with the congregation in this way.

I’ve told my session this - I don’t like the pulpit in our sanctuary. First off I’m 6′4″ and the pulpit is a little too short for me. I’m constantly bobbing my head up and down from my notes in order to establish eye contact with my congregation. Also, the pulpit is very narrow and I feel like I’m boxed in. I’ve got no good place to put my arms or hands when I preach (I don’t either when I use a music stand on the floor, but at least I don’t feel hemmed in.)

The issue with my pulpit leads me to reflect on the fact that our worship space is not set up in a way that provides us with a whole lot of flexibility. In its current configuration, it’s simply not a space that is easily adaptable to modern ways of communicating.

The deficiencies are all around:

1.) I’m not a huge powerpoint person, but I do like to show an occasional video during church or the sermon especially if it accentuates I’m making. But to do so, I have to drag out a portable screen and find a place to put it. The 4 foot one is too small, but the 8 foot one we bought last year is way to big. I also have to drag out a table, a projector; but then we have cords and a table in the way. Not only is it a pain in the b***, it just looks sloppy.

2.) I’d like to occasionally engage in some dialog while preaching. For instance, I’d like to be able to ask a question during a sermon and have people feel like they can answer, but more importantly I’d like people to be able to hear how others have responded to the question. Pews in straight rows do not invite any sense of community or dialog during the worship service.

3.) In a similar vein, I’d like to mix things up. It would be great to have a communion service or a foot washing service in the round, with a table in the middle and chairs in circles around a central table, but once again with pews in a straight row there is no ability to modify the space. Other ideas may come forth if the space could be more easily modified.

These are just a few of the issues with our worship space. We actually are talking about putting together a worship space task force to look at some of these issues. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to tackle the issue of the pews or not, but we’re certainly thinking about things like installing an A/V system, getting rid of our organ (which we’ve moved away from using anyway), and hopefully looking at alternatives to our current pulpit.

What have you done to address limitations in your worship space?