Church Manners
I dearly love my fellow church members, and most of the time I like them too. But, Hiromi is witness occasionally to an indignant outburst on the way home about something I witnessed at church--something I was less likely to do when the boys always rode with us. These things have to do with privileges people allocate to themselves when doing so obviously inconveniences others.
The first occasion for fussing may happen in the parking lot, and sometimes ends with Hiromi asking, "Do you want to drive?" Actually I usually have no quibble with his parking or driving (He's very careful.), although when we're already rushed, I would really like if we could park close to the building rather than follow his usual pattern of heading for the far corners to look for a spot.
It's not as big an issue now as it was when we had a row of trees on the west side of the building, but one of my pet peeves is when people leave ridiculously wide gaps between parked vehicles. It strikes me the same way as it would if a pompous ruler sent trumpeters ahead to clear the path for him. No one at our church qualifies as royalty, and no single person is as wide as half the width of a vehicle, so let's just all be reasonable about our parking.
When the trees were there, three vehicles easily fit between every two trees, unless the first or second vehicle to park there did not park close enough to the tree or the first vehicle. Then there was all kinds of wasted space around the two cars parked there, and the number of vehicles necessitated forming a second row behind the first one. On a blistering hot day, the wide-spreading branches of those sycamore trees provided welcome shade, unless of course your vehicle was in the outer row where the shade did not reach. Because I usually didn't know who the offending vehicle belonged to (bad vehicle memory), I would glare venomously at any offending vehicles I spied--easier to do than if I had thought of the decent person who parked it there.
Inside the church, similar dynamics sometimes prevail. We do not have reserved seats at our church, but you would sometimes think we do by the way certain people always occupy certain spots. This in itself is no problem, if they are early to arrive and their placement does not limit other people's access to the space that remains. I rather like the continuity of such a practice, in fact.
But if the chosen spot is at the very end of an empty bench, every subsequent resident of that bench must either approach via the other aisle or clamber across the person already seated there. Requiring that of others seems extremely rude to me. The first person simply choosing a place near the middle of the bench leaves the greatest number of convenient options open to the subsequent occupants. If the next people always fill in right next to the people already seated there, everything can go off without a hitch. The worst case of all is when there are only two people on a bench, one at each end.
I understand that sometimes necessity requires special placement at the end of a bench. A case in point is the daughter who always sits there to be next to her mother in a wheelchair in the aisle. A parent with small children who need to be taken out during church seems qualified to me too to sit near the end of the row. When I am responsible to write down, copy, and distribute the announcements before people want to leave for home on Sunday morning, I like sitting near the end so I can escape the auditorium just before the final song. I'm sure that sometimes other people have good and right reasons that I'm not aware of or at least not thinking of now.
Prayer meeting on Wed. eve. does not really involve rude or thoughtless behavior, but is often unsettling nevertheless. When we split into small groups and pray where we're seated, no one seems to know how the groups should be divided. Do you pray with the people next to you or in front or behind you? Do you form the groups from the center aisle out or the outside aisle in? No one seems to know. So every time, there's a "dance" while everyone gets situated with others to form a group, making sure no one is left out.
After the group is formed, who prays first? Of course, it really doesn't matter, and I've started always taking charge in my group or asking someone else to take charge. I would gladly not do this, but I would not gladly wait forever till someone else decides to do it. Sadly, the more I do it, the more people expect me to always do it. I've decided it's simply not worth agonizing over.
I would welcome a few simple directives here--not because it's important that it happen a certain way, but because if it's to happen at all, it might as well be orderly as disorderly.
Does your church avoid these problems? How?
The first occasion for fussing may happen in the parking lot, and sometimes ends with Hiromi asking, "Do you want to drive?" Actually I usually have no quibble with his parking or driving (He's very careful.), although when we're already rushed, I would really like if we could park close to the building rather than follow his usual pattern of heading for the far corners to look for a spot.
It's not as big an issue now as it was when we had a row of trees on the west side of the building, but one of my pet peeves is when people leave ridiculously wide gaps between parked vehicles. It strikes me the same way as it would if a pompous ruler sent trumpeters ahead to clear the path for him. No one at our church qualifies as royalty, and no single person is as wide as half the width of a vehicle, so let's just all be reasonable about our parking.
When the trees were there, three vehicles easily fit between every two trees, unless the first or second vehicle to park there did not park close enough to the tree or the first vehicle. Then there was all kinds of wasted space around the two cars parked there, and the number of vehicles necessitated forming a second row behind the first one. On a blistering hot day, the wide-spreading branches of those sycamore trees provided welcome shade, unless of course your vehicle was in the outer row where the shade did not reach. Because I usually didn't know who the offending vehicle belonged to (bad vehicle memory), I would glare venomously at any offending vehicles I spied--easier to do than if I had thought of the decent person who parked it there.
Inside the church, similar dynamics sometimes prevail. We do not have reserved seats at our church, but you would sometimes think we do by the way certain people always occupy certain spots. This in itself is no problem, if they are early to arrive and their placement does not limit other people's access to the space that remains. I rather like the continuity of such a practice, in fact.
But if the chosen spot is at the very end of an empty bench, every subsequent resident of that bench must either approach via the other aisle or clamber across the person already seated there. Requiring that of others seems extremely rude to me. The first person simply choosing a place near the middle of the bench leaves the greatest number of convenient options open to the subsequent occupants. If the next people always fill in right next to the people already seated there, everything can go off without a hitch. The worst case of all is when there are only two people on a bench, one at each end.
I understand that sometimes necessity requires special placement at the end of a bench. A case in point is the daughter who always sits there to be next to her mother in a wheelchair in the aisle. A parent with small children who need to be taken out during church seems qualified to me too to sit near the end of the row. When I am responsible to write down, copy, and distribute the announcements before people want to leave for home on Sunday morning, I like sitting near the end so I can escape the auditorium just before the final song. I'm sure that sometimes other people have good and right reasons that I'm not aware of or at least not thinking of now.
Prayer meeting on Wed. eve. does not really involve rude or thoughtless behavior, but is often unsettling nevertheless. When we split into small groups and pray where we're seated, no one seems to know how the groups should be divided. Do you pray with the people next to you or in front or behind you? Do you form the groups from the center aisle out or the outside aisle in? No one seems to know. So every time, there's a "dance" while everyone gets situated with others to form a group, making sure no one is left out.
After the group is formed, who prays first? Of course, it really doesn't matter, and I've started always taking charge in my group or asking someone else to take charge. I would gladly not do this, but I would not gladly wait forever till someone else decides to do it. Sadly, the more I do it, the more people expect me to always do it. I've decided it's simply not worth agonizing over.
I would welcome a few simple directives here--not because it's important that it happen a certain way, but because if it's to happen at all, it might as well be orderly as disorderly.
Does your church avoid these problems? How?
posted by Mrs. I at
6:45 PM
1 Comments:
In the church I went to in Virginia we knelt to pray during our prayer meetings, so we prayed with someone beside us, by two's or three's. That simplified the grouping.
On the parking, maybe we don't all intuit such things automatically. Once upon a time I parked inappropriately between those trees out west (I hope it was the only time) but fortunately someone nearby kindly informed me of the proper way to do it. After that I knew better.
--Linda Rose
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Anonymous, at 11/06/2008
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