People Spots
Online
Produced by James W.
Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants
Provided as a service by New Life Ministries
When Do People Begin to Feel Crowded?
The impact of pew configurations on growth and saturation.
by James W. Moss, Sr.
What is growth pressure? It is increasing the number of ministry contacts. Designing an effective program of public relations. Adding new worship services, Sunday school classes and other small groups is significant. This must be topped off by the meaningful involvement of laity in ministry. The combination of such efforts increases growth potentials. Following the application of growth pressure, growth will stop when the facilities become saturated.
Following the intentional application of growth pressure, worship attendance will grow with relative ease until the annual average worship attendance reaches 57% of the comfortable seating capacity of the sanctuary. What is the comfortable seating capacity of the sanctuary? It is generally less than you think. I'm not talking about what can be crowded in on Christmas and Easter. I measure capacity based on 25 linear inches of pew space. It is not only necessary to provide a physical space to sit, but individual turf is important as well. Few will sit so they have to touch the person next to them. People in crowded churches have told me how they seek the end pew and then place their coat, pocketbook, or a hymnal on the seat beside them to keep from having to touch the person next to them. Many people, when forced to sit under crowded conditions, simply disappear.
There are six pew configurations which will make it difficult to achieve maximum usage of space.
1. Pews that run to the outer wall create barriers. People will generally arrive and sit in the seats nearest the aisle. Later arrivals must climb over them to get to their seats. People sitting against the wall sense they are trapped. Parents watching young children who have several people between them and the aisle sense intensified frustration.
2. An armrest in the middle of the pew reduces its functional capacity. A seat is lost for each armrest in the middle of a pew.
3. The ideal pew length is twelve to thirteen feet long and comfortably seats five or six people. The longer the pew the less functional it will be. Some pews are twenty or more feet long. Three people sit on each end. Late arrivals must crawl over those already seated. A look across a sanctuary with long pews on Sunday morning will reveal people concentrated at the ends of the pews with large gaps of empty space in the middle. Those spaces are seldom used except on special occasions. In my experience, the churches that I have observed as the most effective in using sanctuary space have tended to have pews of twelve to thirteen feet.
4. Many balconies and overflow units are so unattractive that few people occupy them. St. John's Church was conducting its annual congregational meeting. There was a small, uncomfortable, and difficult to access balcony in their facility. Whenever the leaders discussed sanctuary capacity, they always mentioned the balcony as one of their assets. I asked this leadership core, "Would you attend St. John's every Sunday if you had to sit in the balcony?" Only ten percent responded positively.
5. Temporary seats, such as folding or stack chairs, should be set up with two-three inches between each chair. Don't use the connectors that manufacturers include on many such stack chairs. I was conducting a "People Spot Seminar" at Hillcrest Church. They have stack chairs as opposed to pews. They were set up side by side. One adult person could hardly sit on one of those chairs and not touch the person sitting in the next chair. After a couple of nights it became apparent that no one sat in a seat next to someone else unless they were traveling together. So the next night the pastor and I went through and put three inches between each seat and didn't tell anybody what happened. That night people came in and sat down next to each other.
6. When a facility is visually perceived to be small, it will be difficult to get maximum usage of space. Mt. Holly Church not only has a small sanctuary, the visual perceptions the lines of that room project make it appear smaller than it is. It was difficult for them achieve attendance equal to 80% of the comfortable seating capacity. The sanctuary was expanded. Attendance immediately jumped nearly twenty when the new space was occupied. The new addition was perceived to have added more space than initially it did in reality.
The facility barrier will appear by the time the annual average attendance reaches 57% of the comfortable seating capacity of the sanctuary. I am obviously not saying that the annual average worship attendance will not grow above 57% of the comfortable seating capacity of the sanctuary. However, let me suggest that line is what business calls the point of diminishing returns. The average morning worship attendance for 711 churches surveyed in seven denominations was 49% of the comfortable seating capacity adjusted for multiple services. This figure varied little across the seven denominations.
The resistance builds as people are forced to sit closer to others than is comfortable for them, or are prohibited from sitting in specific areas of the church, as is their custom. Certainly, there are people who enjoy being crowded and like the sanctuary to be overflowing each week. However, it is my hunch that on the American scene more people enjoy space between them and the next person in the pew than we can imagine.
Action Strategy: Please calculate the comfortable seating capacity of the sanctuary by measuring the linear feet of pew space . . . convert the length of pew space to inches . . . divided by 25 . . . equals the comfortable seating capacity. Divide the annual average attendance by the comfortable seating capacity to calculate occupancy. Look across your congregation over the next three Sundays and observe how few people sit so they touch the person next to them.
For more on this subject, see Jim's book People Spots.
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Read about Jim's seminars and books.
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August 14, 2000. Volume 3, Issue 13. People Spots Online is prepared by James W. Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants. It is provided as a service by New Life Ministries, www.NewLifeMinistries-NLM.org. Articles may be duplicated and reproduced in any way. A new article is produced about every two weeks. To be added to a list to receive these messages directly by e-mail, send a request to churchconsultants@yahoo.com.