[Magdalen] Need chairs for nave!

[Jim Guthrie]

> And what do we do with our purses? Hats & gloves? Phones?
> And where do we set our prayer books?

Many Churches have moved to chairs and discarded the pews. Not only do the
chairs have bookracks and sometimes latches, but in smaller intimate services
they can be placed in a circle or different configuration which, at least to my
way of thinking, is the best way to do a quiet, intimate said Eucharist.

These chairs tend to be quite a bit wider than the usual folding chair, but can
be stacked if need be.

Chairs which allow all manner of reconfiguration for use of the Nave for a 
variety of other uses -- solving the curse of terrible stewardship of parishes 
which use the Nave for an hour or three on Sunday morning, but need to keep it 
reasonably heated all week in winter to prevent pipes from freezing.

Chairs allow for real outreach as well. Holy Apostles in NYC uses them in a 
traditional layout on
Sunday mornings, but reconfigures them when the tables are brought into the Nave
to feed the 1300 or so hungry poor people who have a hearty lunch there on
weekdays. This could never happen in a church with traditional pews.

You can also line them up facing an altar table set in the middle of the Nave.
Our favorite Good Friday service at St Paul's in NYC takes this approach --
complete with "sandbox"  in which to place tapers and table altar. It may sound
a impossible, but you can get an intimate feeling with 60-80 or people with this
approach -- something not possible with pews, I think.

The lesson here is that sometimes you have to replace all the furniture to
actually do ministry, rather than bathe in churchly nostalgia or
"We've-Never-Done_it-This-Way-Before"itis.

Cheers,
Jim