seating arrangement

One thing that is totally cool about the new place is that there are not seats bolted to the floor! We can be in a circle on day, arch another, and even face a few chairs to the walls for time outs if we want to.

What about lawn chairs and tanning tables? : )

Tanning Tables… “those that say they are in the light…”

: )

hahahha!! i can think of a certain pastor that would probably end up on time out more often than not!

Just stacking the chairs in piles and handing them out like bulletins? Then people could make their own seating arrangements!

I remember reading about an architect who built a series of office buildings, and when the time came to landscape, he just planted grass between all the buildings. In 6 months he came back and just paved in all the walkways that people had worn into the grass. They represented what the people wanted and needed better than all the planning he could have done.

-T
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What if we’re just figments of God’s imagination?

This is a very hard and difficult subject. Being that we are going to stay with 2 services that would mean that the first service would be responsible for all the chairs. It would be easier to set up as as we usually do. They if we need to break up into smaller groups then we could do that. At the end of each service we would put the chairs back into rows for the 2nd service. Also with people coming in late it would be rather distracting to those already seated.

Wouldn’t it be strange for a new person or family to be given chairs or told to go get your own chair and sit anywhere? How would you feel as a new person and be told to get a chair and just sit down?

“the first service would be responsible for all the chairs” — not they re-stacked them as they left. just think of the timesavings for the setup/tare-down teams.

i imagined doing this this past sunday; juggling a donut, coffee, a “handout”, a pen, and a chair? i thought, “man i’m gunna have to get here a lot earlier if i don’t want to look like a blundering idiot… “

could we have people walking around serving coffee and donuts?

If they serve coffee, doughnuts, and chairs, will they get cute little uniforms? With a hat?

your comment is interesting, bert. how would it feel to a new person? when i go into a new church, i really do have to get the lay of the land before i feel comfortable. having to choose a place could be awkward, especially if the new person arrives early (or even on time) and sets up his/her chair in an empty room, while all the regular attenders meander in late.

the cool thing about pioneer is that the move necessitates us rethinking the way we’ve done things in the past. linda brings up a good point, “why chairs?” the sky’s the limit here.

suppose there are no folding chairs at the sunday worship experience, how do we handle seating?

The image of being at a coffee shop sitting in a circle around a table comes to mind… LOVE it when I see a circle of people intentionally scoot over and make room and even offer to quickly get a chair for a new person… that welcome into our group / circle concept… we present the idea to every group of journey folks to be “chair getters” and inviters into their group type people…

then the next week we put colored dots - like twister and ask people to go find the color dot on the floor that matches the color dot on their printed program that week…

or…we get 200 donated carpet squares like they use in Jourenyland - and one weekend a month we sit on them.

or… we tell everyone to bring a lawn chair for BACKYARD BBQ Sunday - where the whole room is set up like a person’s back yard.. with backyard games, coolers with soda, AREA covered with green astro turf. ??

OR… we ask Devon Carlock to build bench seats to be set up like a campground large campfire area…

we get inflatable chairs & couches and fill them up with a powerful compressor.

or…people don’t sit, they stand and walk around as part of the whole worship experience. i once saw this labryrinth (just a diagram on the floor) in a cathedral that you would prayerfully walk though - very powerful experiential piece.

or…we do a drive-in service where we set up sound equpitment outside and have people stay in their cars for the wroship experience. we could have car hops delivering coffee & doughnuts.

other things to sit on:
bleachers
ladders
rocking horses
cots (great for a sex series!)
the edge of the stage
tables / desks

what if we just got people into the habit of bringing their own chairs / seating? We could have stuff for people who are new to the journey, but overall people could bring something with which they are comfortable.

I am most comfortable on my sofa, but lugging that big thing around every Sunday would be a drag. However, if someone else lugs it around, I’d be grateful.

Comfort is always nice. LOL

Tanya Reynolds
http://www.tanyamreynolds.com
http://tanyareynolds.blogspot.com

What if we arranged our chairs at home around the web cam and then we used WebEx or something and watched Jeff and the band from home. While watching the F1 race.

Oh I know!! We could be an internet church.

I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, “You’re my favorite.”

OK a real comment from me.

The one thing I am totally freaking pumped about is the seating thing. I cannot adequately convey the hatred I have of sitting in chairs and staring at the backs of people’s necks. Even as a tech guy, I don’t care if the web thing fully works out; what I am most excited about is seeing people’s faces during Sunday morning.

I also like the idea because it forces everyone to participate in setup and tear down. One of my hopes is that the chairs thing will sensitize people to the amount of effort it takes to set up and tear down and that eventually, putting your chair back will grow into helping with cables or packing up JL or whatever. I want to put a bullet squarely in the back of the head of the Consuming Church Services Mentality. Execution style, baby.

The one thing I worry about though, is making sure that new people aren’t left alone. It’s bad enough being a new person with no one to sit with. Grabbing your own chair and having the ego strength to sit with others may be a challenge for some introverted types. And sitting in your own little circle may be awkward as well.

Perhaps we all need to be on the lookout for people who seem new and who may have formed their own two-person chair-island at Pioneer and take the initiative to join them.

I believe in God because every once in a while, I hear a voice that says, “You’re my favorite.”

Say “What” again!

Barb would like me to post an idea from her (please note that she is in Journeyland WAY too much!) Becca and I did have some input here…

Let’s randomly set out carpet squares and paper towels with a donut on each paper towel and let the chaos ensue.

How about all the chocolates in one group, sprinkles in another, and those wild jelly filled near the time out chairs?

i really like the idea of being in the round once in a while, but technically it’s proving to be VERY difficult. several ideas i like:

1. coffee tables / cocktail tables
2. horseshoe shaped. like the trinity deeper - that was really powerful
3. booths! i love booths! so comfy and horeshoe-ish
4. remember that deeper where we bit into the apples? i loved how we did the seating for that. it was in clusters. some were inside tents with chairs & twinkle lights, some on rugs with pillows. it made for great discussion cuz each group took a section of scripture. that could work sometimes too.

A few years back at my old church we had a worship set were we arranged the seats around the band (Like MTV unplugged). Actually I think Andy did it once for deeper; just him and a piano.
Works well for a laid back set.

Nigel-

I loved that arrangement.

Can i bring my camp chair next week? :)

We plan to keep experimenting with the arrangement of chairs (or no chairs) to create comfortable relational settings. The European style pews / rows has existed for hundreds of year - time for us to try something new (and probably use the rows occassionally too). If it helps people grow spiritually and be connected into our community of faith - is it worth it?

I liked the arrangement because it was different, but honestly it didn’t have the “Journey” feel to it. It was hard initially getting used to, and I think it may take time to adjust to…but I agree with what you’re saying Jeff. =)
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During my athiest days going to The River with my wife, I would even help with clean up by folding chairs and racking them. I felt more like “a good person”. Plus, I didn’t have to stand around with my wife and talk to all those freaky Christians. Gave me something to do.

Getting people to help fold up chairs is a really easy way to ease them into greater tear down responsibilities!

I wanted to say I like the chairs being in a semi-circle, but when the gathering switches to the interactive part, for me it’s easier to speak; when the seats in a row like at the last part of yesterday’s churching. Face to face interaction is great but a little hard in a large group setting. Does anyone else feel the same?