Copyright: © 2000 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

Thirty years ago, when I was serving as Campus Pastor at Syracuse University, I read an illuminating article in that school's student newspaper that changed my movie-viewing habits forever. The article was written by a hot-shot undergraduate student movie buff, and the burden of his essay was this: Most people sit too far back in a movie theatre to be fully engaged in the medium.

It was my custom, in those days, and maybe yours as well, to sit somewhere in the rear third of the theatre. But, this student hot-shot was saying, at that distance you're not fully engaged in the movie; your peripheral vision is cluttered with all kinds of extraneous material. To get the most out of your movie-going experience, he was saying, you should try to engage your peripheral vision as well. That means walking down the aisle until the image on-screen appears actually distorted, and then, walking back two rows to find a seat.

I'm a real movie buff myself -- Once a week in a theatre, if I can manage it; movies are the art-form of the age we live in, in my view! -- so I followed his advice.

And by golly, he's right! You do get much more out of the experience. You don't want to sit so close you'll get a stiff neck looking up. But you do, I'm assuming, want to be fully engaged in the medium.

The result? These days I always sit in the first third of a theatre auditorium, and encourage my companions to do the same, sometimes over much protesting. (Hey, I've even been known to let them sit in the last row, if that's their choice, while I abandon them to watch the movie from my own preferred seat, in the first third of the hall. Not very companionable, but, hey, first things first!)

Item: A recent sociological survey indicates that those who sit in the first third of any auditorium, at any event, get more out of the experience. No matter: It can be a movie, a play, a dance recital, a lecture, a concert. It can even be -- Are you really surprised at this? -- in a church building at a service of worship.

My advice? Do whatever you can, despite their protests, to get the people in your parish to sit up front for worship. You are simply not as fully engaged when you're seated in the last rows.

(I'm fully aware that that's precisely the point, for many worshippers: They have no intentions of being fully engaged!)

Make it a point to remind your faithful worshippers that the last rows of seats in any church building are for 1) the ill or infirm; 2) those who for one reason or another must make a hasty exit; 3) those who just want to come in out of the cold to a warm room and rest a spell. And, importantly, the last rows of seats should be reserved for 4) the minimally committed, the temporarily committed, and the provisionally committed.

As for 5) parents with wiggly children, I'd want them to sit precisely in the front rows, to watch and take part in the action of worship. (This assumes, does it not, that weekly worship involves some action: standing, sitting, kneeling, exchanging the Peace, walking forward to the Table, eating and drinking there, walking back to your seat, maybe even turning towards the Font at Confession, or towards the Processional Cross or Crucifix as it passes. As pastor or worship planner, I'd try to find ways to pack as much congregational action into each Service as I possibly can!)

Yes, I'm aware that there's a type of Protestant piety that ascribes an unbecoming immodesty, an overweening pride, to those who presume to sit up front in church. And conversely, assumes that to take one's place, rather, in the rear rows is the sign of a chaste humility -- as if waiting, breathlessly, for the Lord of the Feast to intone, "Friend, go up higher." But that's a false modesty, you'll agree. ("Don't be so humble", says Israel's inimitable late Prime Minister, Golda Meier, "You're not that good!")

Further: I'd encourage faithful worshippers -- those you can count on being there, week after week -- to sit, not simply in the first third of the hall, but to sit, as well, in the middle of a row, not at the row-end, so as to invite others, non- verbally, to join you. To sit at the row-end is to send the signal: "Don't sit near me! If you try, you're going to have to climb over my knees!"

Again, understandable exceptions to this rule: the ill, the aged, the infirm.

OK: So much for worshippers. How about worship leaders and Presiders: Where should they sit?

Answer: The sedilia (latin for "seat"; here, of worship leaders). At least one liturgical scholar maintains that, in the early church, the sedilia, the seat of the bishop-presider, was as important an item of church furnishing as the altar. Indeed, the bishop-presider's chair was the only one in the worship space: Everyone else was expected to stand throughout the rite!

Item: I attended a four-day church conference this Summer where the worship was splendid: sensitively and imaginatively planned and led with an affecting naturalness in piety that was very winsome. But at several of the services, there were no discernable sedilia; you could not tell where the worship leaders were going to sit, once they had made their entrance.

The result was predictable. At one Eucharist, I entered the crowded worship space a little later than is my custom, and took an empty seat in a front row that I was presently asked to vacate, when the Presider and Assisting Minister entered: I was sitting in their space. With some embarrassment, I sought and found another seat. The whole semi-humiliating scenario was repeated, later in the Summer at one of the church's flagship retreat centres, when once again I found myself inadvertently sitting where the leaders had planned to sit.

The sedilia, the seats of worship leaders, should always be discernable, and in full view of the whole assembly. Sedilia need not be elevated above nave level; they need not be grander pieces of furniture than the people's seats. But worship leaders should be visible to the assembly at all times; it is simply one of the burdens you must bear as leader. It is from worship leaders, after all, that the people take their cues for sitting or standing. Hence you do your people no favour by attempting to hide among them.

I can appreciate the motives of modesty that often animate worship leaders' instincts to sit among their people. But it's a false egalitarianism: see Golda Meier above.

So the sedilia belong among the Four Grand Irreplaceable, Non- negotiable Architectural Signs in Christian worship: font (Essay 38), table Essay 39, ambo (Essay 40), and sedilia. In any space set aside for Christian worship, these Four Grand Architectural Signs should properly stand forth with utmost clarity for all to see. There should be no guesswork among worshippers as to who is worship leader or presider, and no guesswork as to where they sit. Sorry: It's simply one of the burdens of worship leadership that worship leaders must learn to endure with grace and good humour. You are to be visible to all the people, at all times; never hidden among them. You honour your people and the event you are serving -- Christian worship of the Triune God -- when you accept this burden gracefully.