When you are designing or expanding your church, one of the most important factors to consider is the seating for your congregation.
An uncomfortable or distracted congregation won't want to stay and listen to God's word, and who can blame them? In order to keep your parishioners comfortable and focused, you need to ensure that your seating fits their physical needs and their aesthetic expectations.
Generally speaking, churches have two choices for the seating in their sanctuaries: chairs or pews.
Each has its advantages and disadvantages, so pick what is right for your congregation.
Comfort If you've ever sat in a church with children and pews, you know: pews can be uncomfortable to sit in! Pews are often just plain wooden seats that offer little to no comfort to your parishioners.
Even if you have splurged and gotten pews with some kind of cushioning, it may not be enough for your elderly congregation members or young children.
Chairs, on the other hand, can offer better cushioning than pews, and can be far more comfortable than traditional pews.
Appearance There is no denying it: a church with rows of pews is a beautiful sight to behold.
They are all lined up perfectly, all angling just so toward the altar - it's picturesque.
However, chairs can also be a beautiful addition to a church, especially if you match your décor to your chairs' cushioning.
Chairs these days come in a wide variety of colors and patterns to complement nearly any church's aesthetics.
Traditional or Modern? If your church is going for a specific feel, you will want to pick a specific style of seating to match that.
Pews echo a more traditional, or even rustic, feel for a church.
Aesthetically, they are generally considered the better option for cathedrals and other classical spaces.
Chairs provide a church a more modern feel than this, and can be considered distracting if they are used in the wrong space.
Flexibility Pews are, by and large, immobile once they've been installed in your church's sanctuary.
They are huge and heavy, and nobody wants to go to the effort to move them.
This is wonderful if your congregation uses the worship space solely for traditional worship-no need to worry that something isn't in the right place for Sunday services! However, this can be less than ideal if you use the sanctuary for an assortment of activities.
Chairs offer your church the ability to be very flexible about seating arrangements, moving them and adding to (or subtracting from) them as needed.
This can be very convenient for smaller churches that need flexibility, or more modern churches that have a variety of services.