#184. That table and chair ministers use on stage.
Apr 27th by Jon
Maybe you don’t have this at your church. Maybe the small round table and single chair is something unique to North Point, where I attend. But I can’t help wondering when the standard pulpit evolved into the modern furniture we now find on lots of stages. Have you seen this? It’s a high-legged table and a hip looking chair in most cases. I think about it a lot. Is that bad? Do I have a poor attention span if I wonder about that chair for minutes on end? Does that reflect poorly on me?
Probably, which is why if I really shouldn’t share the 3 things that I think most about the chair and the table:
1. The super salesperson
I have a theory that the salesperson who once sold choir robes lost their job when we stared doing more worship music and rock band kind of services in church. So instead they started selling a single chair and a table to churches across the country.
2. My favorite pair
I slept in a hotel recently and missed my pillow. I wonder if the same thing happens to pastors. Like when Andy Stanley travels to speak at conferences, does he bring his chair and table with him or does he use whatever they’ve got at the conference? And did he name the table, “pinkie” or is that only me and my pillow?
3. The cocky chair
Do you think the chair has developed a bit of an ego at this point? I’m assuming during the rest of the week it’s just a normal, tall chair used around the church. Does it brag about being the special chair? Do they rotate them so that animosity in the chair community does not develop?
What’s next on stage? Maybe ministers will start giving more sermons from the knitted embrace of a hammock? Or they’ll start whittling and smoking corn cob pipes from rocking chairs? Or some Christian author will write a book about being a cowboy and mechanical bulls will get popular. Hard to say, but please know, I’m waiting on the edge of my seat. (That was horrible. Ugh, what a terrible pun. I should have taken that joke off the table. Ugh, even worse. My apologies.)
Comments
“…they’ll start whittling and smoking corn cob pipes from rocking chairs…”
Nice.
my pastor uses a table and chair. he has never once sat in the chair. i don’t get it one bit. i think he just wants to be like andy.
My pastor does it ye olde school with a pulpit. Although, the media/stage guys will jazz it up according to whatever series is being preached. Sometimes.
Like cardboard for our evangelism series or surfboard for heaven series.
My young adult pastor does the table/chair/laptop setup but he does sit in the chair and his laptop is opened to Google Docs for sermon notes.
I’ve seen it online, but I haven’t seen it at any of the 7 churches I’ve been to in the last year (most visiting).
(3 United Methodist, 1 Catholic, 2 Southern Baptist, 1 unaffiliated)
Of course it could still be coming. Things tend to take longer to get to Mississippi.
No, it's the churches you're visiting… LOL It takes centuries for "modern" moves to hit traditional denominations.
lol! i use the table and chair when i speak too! and i’m really tempted to bring the chair to the other settings that i speak in- all of the othr chairs avaialable aren’t quite the right height-
the table and chair have migrated south…….does Andy’s “mysteriously” appear right before the sermon and disappear right after?
Wow. I’m the guy on the worship team who has to bring the Pastor’s chair and table on stage after worship. I never knew the chair and table was something other churches had.
I’m assuming that the pulpit was removed to make the unchurched feel more comfortable. The chair and table says, “Hey, sit down and talk with me about something.” The podium says, “Hellfire and brimstone!” I think people are more likely to receive Christ during a personal conversation than being “preached at.” I don’t know, just a theory …
I do know that working with a chair and table makes me feel more comfortable about eventually preaching one day than the podium. The podium feels like a speech, school and is very intimidating. The chair says, “It’s okay if you mess up. This isn’t a ‘speech’ anyway. We’re just chit-chattin’.”
Donna, next time keep your eyes on all the guys in the worship band. One of them usually brings it on and takes it off.
This post is great. I’ve seen Andy Stanley speak away from NorthPoint a couple of times and he does use the table and chair. Don’t know if he brought them with him or if it’s just a contract rider, but pretty funny.
I’ve also seen Craig Groeschel from Life Church refer to the “Andy Stanley table and chair” when he talked about what pastors do to be “cool.” It was quite funny.
1. I’m sure ther is a catalog somewhere of bar tables and single chairs that has been mailed to churches all around the world to start this trend.
2.He does have a favorite table and chair combo but the powers that be in set design world change it sometimes.
3. they are never used for anything else in the church, they are tucked in backstage with a table cloth on them that says Andy’s table, do not use. They get a little high and mighty sometimes, talking smack to the workbench and the band stools about how cool they are that they get to be filmed in HD and broadcast all over the internet when all the other stools are just used in rehearsal. We’ve talked to them and they will try to do better about it. That chair does have an attitude though!
That brings to mind a somewhat-related topic: The throne. You know the throne. Old-school, big ornate chair that sits sort of on the side of the stage, where the (usually Baptist) pastor sits during the other parts of the service. Big churches have multiple thrones, for multiple pastors, but the main pastor gets a special one! I kinda wish they’d go with a hammock…
Hmm, I think the chair is actually just an updated pharisee chair. You know, the ones that all the ministers sat in and loomed out into the congregation from. The table is the updated pulpit, but the chair is just an updated attempt at getting the pastor closer to the pulpit so as to avoid those long walks from the pharisee chairs over to the pulpit.
Next, we’ll see the worship leader, announcement guy, and possibly an associate pastor of some kind sitting in a row on smaller stools. Those are just my thoughts and predictions.
Never seen the table and chairs, but I have noticed fake pastel flowers and drummers in plexi-glass prisons. I live in Canada but last Sunday I attended a church service in Perth, Australia. Same fake flowers, and the drummer was in a fish bowl.
animosity in the chair community? Where do you get this stuff?
Our church has that table but with two chairs. So they can both have their coffee from the church’s new coffee shop whilst sharing about God’s love, forgiveness and whatever latte is the special of the week.
that is simply hilarious!
brilliant.
well done.
Get this – not only does my pastor use a table and chair, he has used an entire dining room set and buffett table full of food. Of course they were illustrations, but the food was real. And yes I go to a mega church. But even with the huge auditorium you could totally smell the food. Definately KFC. Hate to admit it but communion was a let down that day. I was ready for a biscuit.
(not really anonymous, Stacy)
Just to add another level of funny to this…I used to plan the conferences at North Point where we had a few thousand people from other churches come in and learn about our model. Without fail, after every conference, I would get at least 20 emails from other churches wanting to know where to get the exact table and chair that we used on stage. Because we all know that table + chair + blue jeans + drums = contemporary (read “relevant”) service. Or not.
Is that a barcalounger I see on the horizon?….
I just came home from college and my pastor at my home church now has a table. No chair yet, thank goodness, but there is a table. I’m getting nervous.
Um yeah, it’s me again… deal with it. I’ve been to many different churches over the years, starting out LCMS and then moving to the EVFree in college. Then back to high-church — Anglican. At said Anglican church in Falls Church, depending on the service they will use the actual pulpit or they will bring out the CLEAR plexiglas lectern (and sit the macbook on it).
Wow … I glanced at the picture and was immediately reminded of my own church! (Megachurch in north Texas) I actually was thinking about the chair and table this morning in church.
It’s actually a new thing since we moved into a new building. Before that there was no podium, no chair, nothing.
Interesting fads.
There’s a table and chair on our stage, too. The table has rather interestingly shaped wrought iron legs, and I often spend at least 5 minutes of the sermon studying them.
My church just has a nice, metal and glass table. We used to have a small bar, but it took 2 guys to move it on stage after worship, so it was replaced. My parents’ church has a table and a couple of stools instead, but they stay on the stage.
@Anon April 28, 2008 3:50 AM:
My church has moved the drummer to a plexiglass prison as well, but my parents’s church built a whole new ROOM backstage for the drummer. There’s a darkened window so that the drummer can look out, but we can hardly ever see in from the audience.
I recently began attending my parent's mega-church. I'm not a mega-church person. It's too glitzy–though they don't have lazers, they have the screens, the shnazzy instruments, the hipster worship band [the main worship leader is a pleasant but has a penchant for talking during the songs]. It's also too big. I'm pretty sure the church building itself could fit my entire high school in it two and a half, maybe three, times. It's massive. But despite all this visible "awesome," the pastor actually uses a simple stand-thing. It looks highly remeniscent of music stands from band [I will admit that it is probably a very nice one]. After praise and worship is done, he says his prayer for the opening, sets it up on stage and then works his way up and around to begin speaking.
I find this refreshing because I attended a Christian college where one of the gifts to the college was a very fancy, very expensive, and fairly unattractive lectern thingy. It sort of became a icon of ridicule for the poor financial decisions of the college [along with their ridiculously expensive lighting in the student lounge building].
soooo funny! my church doesnt have this (we have a typical podium that my pastor actually made himself)
we have a table with a glass of water on it, thats it! sometimes guest speakers get an actual lectern
I visited a church once where the pastor stood behind a regular pulpit and wore a robe, but when it came time for the actual sermon part of the service, he presented it sitting down on one of those high chairs (still wearing the robe)…
We Presbyterians still enjoy a good pulpit. Actually, some of us still enjoy clerical robes, too. Maybe we're just old fashioned.
The church that I grew up in, though (Assembly of God) had this weird policy where all of the pastors sat on stage behind the senior pastor throughout the whole service. I suppose so that they could be visible and look important…I don't really know. We did have fun making funny faces at the youth pastor during particularly serious moments of the service, though, and watching him try not to laugh.
the thought that runs through my mind through the sermon is that the chair cannot be comfortable to sit in. The back is too small, and your feet can't touch the ground. everytime my pastor sits in it, it is only for a few minutes and usually to emphasize the point he is making is a solemn one.
At my old church, we called the chairs on the stage "thrones"…they were very Gaither-esque.
The reaosn the pastor sits in the "chair, throne, pharisee seat", is because of the church tell him to do so… it's not what he/she wants to do but the people declare it as "holy". Stick your index finger out… and point towards YOU.
Our pastor doesn't usually have one, but when he has a "guest" talking about their mission trip or testimony as the sermon, there's a table and two stools and the sit facing eachother sot eh audience sees the profile of each. And it's creepy! It makes me feel like I'm sitting in on some intimate conversation or like I'm eavesdropping on their conversation at Starbucks.