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I recently saw an ad in the classifieds for free church pews. A local church was giving away 20 perfectly good traditional wooden pews with padded backs and seats. Now I’m assuming that they are replacing the wooden pews with nice padded folding chairs, as is the practice of many churches today. I would also assume that someone, somewhere is complaining that doing away with the traditional church pew would be detrimental to the fellowship of the congregation. Imagine someone saying, “The old-fashioned wooden pews promoted togetherness and fellowship. Individual folding chairs creates separatism and will destroy the unity of the church during corporate worship.” Such a thought is similar to one that circulated on social media a while back, in which some folks complained that the use of projected songs in lieu of hymn books would ruin the spiritual nature of congregational singing. “Give me that old-time religion.”
Christians, especially older saints, should be very careful of letting long-time traditions become ill-focused doctrine. We are warned about religion based on personal preference of physical things or traditional ritual customs. “Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is” (1 Cor. 3:12–13). The foundation of our faith is built on Jesus Christ, and we serve the Lord under His perfect law of liberty (1 Cor. 3:11; James 1:25). When it comes to the physical nature of our service, it doesn’t matter if stand, sit on a wooden bench or lay on the floor, as long as we worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24) and serve our fellowman (Matt. 25:34-36; James 1:27) according to the inspired word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
Jay Launius
Maud Church of Christ
Maud, TX