People can be weird. We often do things instinctively and only later figure out our instincts are going against our values.

A few years ago, post-covid, our church needed a new venue for Sunday worship. The hotel we were meeting in was no longer working for us and they wanted to substantially jack up the prices. We were able to rent from another church, which meant a move to afternoon services, but we thought now we had space to grow. As it turns out, we had too much space to grow.

We weren’t exactly filling the room from the beginning, but neither were we rattling around in it. However, the variables of an international church means a fair bit of transfer. Sometimes growth, sometimes loss. Churches (like ours) that are somewhat reliant on transfers are also vulnerable when the transfers work the other way. People move to your city/country. They also move away from your city/country. Every three years or so our church is probably 50% new.

We began to realise that the space we hoped would work for us was starting to work against us. The church has pews not chairs. The capacity is static unlike the number of attenders. A stadium is an awesome place for a match or concert when the place is full and the energy pumping. It’s far less awesome when the stadium is two thirds empty and everyone is spread out throughout the place. Churches are not immune to the dynamics of space.

And then people’s instincts made it worse.

Someone would enter the room and sit at one end of a pew. A little later someone else would come in and sit at the other end of the pew leaving a space for about 8 people between them and their neighbour. This row is now effectively blocked off because no one who can sit somewhere else chooses to inch their way into the middle of the row past the end of row guardians. Instincts for ease and comfort meant that in a space for 250 people, the 80 or so people in the room were often sitting very spread out. And yet, as far as I know anyway, everyone actually likes each other!

So I decided to risk upsetting people. You know how territorial we get about our space. The space where I sit. Don’t mess with the places I feel comfortable right? Well, I did. And so far people are still being nice to me.

We asked people to sit on just one side of the church until that side was more or less full before sitting on the other side. We wanted, I said, to sit together as family and to sing together as a church. Values over instinct.

And guess what? People have loved it. The worship leaders have loved it: they can hear the people singing again. People are talking to each other more. It’s easier for people to pray for one another, easier for the preacher to make eye contact, easier for people to feel a part of the church and for guests to feel welcomed by the church.

Seeing a group of people clustered on one side also changed how people chose where to sit. They would then sit as close to the aisle as possible, it’s weird to sit as far from the other people as possible but before when everyone just spaced themselves it, it never felt like that because there was always someone close by just in a different row!

With just a little nudge and encouragement and the discovery of a little phrase to explain the values to which we aspire, the space begins to work for us again. Sit together as family, sing together as church.