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Creating the Ideal Sanctuary: The Furnishings that Make Possible the Receipt of The Word
October 1, 2006
It could be argued that the most important element of a church is its congregation. Some might say that a church’s success is measured by the size of that congregation, but an even more important measure, most pastors or priests would agree, would be the level of understanding achieved by that congregation of the sermon and God’s word, and their subsequent life demonstration of the lessons taught therein.
Before this understanding can be achieved, the sermon must be delivered to the flock in such a manner that they may receive it. There are many elements that go into this delivery, but certainly a central aspect is the sanctuary, its arrangement and its furnishings. Every part of a sanctuary should serve to enhance the church’s fundamental mission, and of prime importance within the sanctuary is the construction and arrangement of its pews.
Many a pastor, priest, deacon or elder has braved the task of ensuring that pews will be attractive and fit into the overall visual theme of a sanctuary, that they will be arranged for optimum line-of-sight and hearing, and will provide adequate comfort for the duration of a service. Gained through the experience of some of those who have come before, here are some tips on the choice, acquisition, and installation of those all-important pews.
1. Choose a manufacturer with an understanding and specialty in church pews.
While at first glance a church pew may be a simple undertaking for any experienced carpenter, there are many aspects to pew design and placement which make it the better province of experts. Yes, a pew is essentially an elongated wooden bench, but as anyone engaged in the building of a sanctuary will tell you, numerous questions can arise right at the outset. What wood or woods will last the longest? How is a pew best made comfortable? How far apart should they be spaced? To which what type of floor (carpeted, tiled, etc.) will the pews be anchored, and how is that best done to not damage the floor or the pews? What happens if a beam or other architectural necessity ends up being placed where a pew is supposed to go?
“You need to have someone you can go to who has experience and knows what they’re doing,” says Building Finance Chairman Larry Linman of the American Lutheran Church in Bourbonnais, Illinois, who recently helped oversee the building of his church’s new building. In order to formulate needs for their pews, input from three different groups was required: from representatives of worshipers, a committee representing church music, and the church’s design team. After careful consultation with the church’s builder and their own investigation, they decided on a company called Imperial Woodworks of Waco, Texas, a specialist in the manufacture and installation of pews for 46 years.
Being experts, this company was able to help American Lutheran Church solve several problems. “After getting input from our architect and from Imperial Woodworks, we were able to put together a plan that worked really well for us. The first several rows up front are chairs, so that if we need to put on a larger event or a play, we can just move them.” Imperial also manufactured the chairs as well as the pews to coordinate design-wise and function as church seating when needed.
When Santa Cruz Catholic Church of Buda, Texas went to build their new sanctuary, they wanted pews which would be beautiful and fit into the design scheme, and also last for the life of the church. After seeing 5 different presentations, they chose the company that showed them what they needed, at a price they could afford, and who had the most expertise. “They had everything that we wanted,” says Paul Curtin, Building Committee Chairman for the church. “We also knew they knew what they were doing, because they had been around long enough that they had built the pews for our previous building.”
2. Choose someone who understands the science of pew design.
There is a science of pew design, and that science begins with structural integrity. For example, the back of the pew is exactly constructed and pitched so that, first, it will fully support the person seated in it, and second, it will support worshipers behind the pew using the pew back as support to rise to their feet. As another example, it might be assumed that solid wood, being the traditional pew material, would be the ultimate in pew end design. But solid wood has many detriments, the chief among them being that it expands and contracts from heat, cold and humidity, causing it to crack, split and warp. More modern advances have brought pew ends to be manufactured of plywood and MDF (medium-density fiberboard) with veneers of hardwood. This combination brings the beauty of hardwood to sanctuary pew design with far better stability, and allows the manufacturer to warrantee the pews for the life of the building.
These pew ends are virtually indistinguishable from solid wood. “When we were talking to the pew manufacturer we ended up going with, we told them we wanted solid wood pews, like our old church,” says Santa Cruz Catholic Church’s Curtin, “only with the addition of upholstered seats for improved comfort and sound control. The pew manufacturer’s representative, who had supplied the pews in our old church, kind of embarrassed us by telling us that they were veneered wood and not solid wood!”
Curtin and his committee found the newer pew ends to be superior in design as well as structure. “If you do go with solid wood, you’ve got to pay more money to get select oak with beautiful grain. But if you use these materials and put a veneer on it, you can afford to have a very beautiful grain. So the appearance in the end is better, and at a lower price.”
Comfort is very important in pew design, as discomfort will distract a listener during a sermon. Far from the hard bench seats of old, modern pews can be designed with comfort in mind.
“The pews we installed were very comfortable,” says American Lutheran Church’s Linman. “They have a cushioned back and cushioned seat, with foam and springs so there is back support.” These are the same type of spring cushion seats found in automobiles which enable a person to sit for some hours.
3. Have your manufacturer work directly with the builder and, if possible, the architect.
Since your pew manufacturer will be working hand-in-glove with your building contractor, it is vitally important they form a mutual understanding and are able to work together. “You have to have someone who works with the builder,” says American Lutheran Church’s Linman. “Our builder had worked with Imperial before and recommended them, which went a long way.”
While it’s not always possible to have an architect name the manufacturer right in the church building plans, it will greatly assist up the line if the architect can coordinate with the pew manufacturer at the outset. This will ensure that what is laid out in the plans is actually what gets installed in the church, and that what gets installed in the church is what the customer wanted.
A pew expert will make it easy for an architect to deal with them. Imperial Woodworks, for example, offers a free service to architects to assist them in pew layout. If Imperial spots a problem with the seating layout, they will make the architect aware of it, privately and confidentially.
A common example of the problems solved at this stage is that an architect, forgetting that they’re dealing with an inclined floor, will lay a row of pews right across a break in the incline of a floor. This is one of the many problems that a pew expert will catch before it is too late, having run across it many times.
While Santa Cruz Catholic Church dealt directly with their pew provider instead of having the architect do so, they did have the pew manufacturer submit four different seating layouts so that they could look them over in relation to the architect’s plans. “We made sure that they fit in architecturally and that we had all the aisles the way that we wanted them,” says Paul Curtin.
4. Choose a pew manufacturer who is flexible and can change on the fly.
But if the architect and the pew manufacturer cannot coordinate from the beginning, it well behooves a church to choose a manufacturer who can be flexible when needed.
Having such a manufacturer greatly assisted American Lutheran Church with their new church building as it was going up. “Our architect didn’t listen to us as well as he should’ve,” says Linman. “Our old church had aisles that measured 5 feet 4 inches, and we told him they weren’t wide enough. When the architect designed the new church, three of the aisles were even narrower—48 inches.”
“We worked with the pew manufacturer and widened the aisles,” Linman continues. “They came out right away and cut a couple of the pews right at the church to match, so that they were neat. They then moved all the pews. That accommodation really helped us.”
Many architect errors are not committed through malice; the building codes and issues involved would only be familiar to someone who works with pew manufacture on a regular basis. Hence having someone working with a church builder who has traveled this road many times is a considerable advantage.
Santa Cruz Catholic Church found that they needed to make a last-minute fundamental change in seating layout. “Almost at the last minute, we decided to change the spacing between pew rows from 36 inches to 38 1/2, to give us just a little more room,” says Curtin. “The pew manufacturer had to re-lay it out again, and they were very cooperative on that point.”
Another late change also had to be accommodated. “At the last minute, we put in a hard ceramic floor,” adds Curtin. “They had to fly in special drill bits to drill through that material. But they did it, and they didn’t complain to us at all. They did a great job, and we were very happy with it.”
5. Choose a manufacturer who can deliver the exact pews you ordered, and on time.
In order to complete the building of a church on time and accurately, it is important choose a company that is reliable and who will deliver the exact items you ordered on time, so that crucial first service goes on as scheduled.
“If we’d hired a regular carpenter, the job would have taken a lot longer,” says American Lutheran Church’s Linman. “We wouldn’t have gotten the uniformity we got, the level of detail. We ordered the pews, they gave us a timetable, they delivered according to the timetable, we did not have to wait.”
Paul Curtin agrees. “They delivered the exact product they showed us a sample of and which we chose,” he says. “We didn’t feel like, ‘oh, gee, it’s not quite the product we thought it was going to be.”
It takes the right furnishings to create the ideal sanctuary, and assistance from an expert in the manufacture and placement of pews will ensure the building is completed on time, and exactly as the builders specified it.
For more information about Imperial Woodworks, Inc. pews, chairs, pulpits, Communion tables or re-upholstery services visit the website at www.imperialww.com, call (800) 234-6624, or email John Hancock at jlhancock@imperialww.com.
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