Why It’s Usually a Mistake to “Save Seats.”

Church building with congregation singingpixabay.com

I attended the funeral of a dear friend’s father on Saturday.  He was a truly remarkable man, and I don’t say that lightly.  There were so many life lessons and blessings in that service that I have 2 1/2 pages of scribbled notes I plan to turn into blog posts, as the material is just too good to keep to myself.  How the family pulled this service together in the midst of their grief is a testimony to them, their unity, and their faith.  While I found myself tearing up periodically as warm memories were shared, the service as a whole was happy​.  Does that sound nonsensical? Well, stay tuned.

This particular post, though, is about a phenomenon I observed in the audience and which has always irritated me.  The picture ​included here is just a stock photo of some church in New York City, but you can bet that somewhere in that auditorium someone is “saving a seat” for someone else.  We’ve all had this happen at some event (it doesn’t have to be a church service, of course) where there are no assigned or reserved seats. You come in the back, spy a gap in a row, slip up to it, and see that there’s a hymnal, or a coat, or a purse sitting in the space.  “Is this seat taken?” you ask.  “Yes, it’s saved,” the person next to the gap says.  Now you have to find somewhere else to sit.  Meanwhile that space stays empty.  This happened to me Saturday.  I found a place right behind the saved seats and so could observe what happened next.  At least two more people came up to the row, looked inquiring, and were told the places were taken.  So one guy sort of shrugged, or waved his hand, or something, and sat down right at the end of the row.  Meanwhile the woman who was saving the seat kept peering around to spot the people for whom she was saving the seats instead of just paying attention. Eventually the sav-ees came in; they were the couple who had been minding the guest register.  There really wasn’t space for them any more since that guy had sat at the end of the pew, but they squeezed in anyway.  It looked very uncomfortable.  And, really, they were perfectly capable of finding their own seats.

This whole “seat saving” business bothers me because it embodies two aspects of human behavior that I find particularly maddening:  officiousness and fussiness.  And–this sounds harsh, I know–a form of selfishness.  In other words, my friends, my family members, are more important than other people who could just sit there in that seat.  And I have to be sure that my party all sits together.  (I’ve never understood this whole “we all have to sit together” idea.)  It’s all up to me.

I know, I know.  A very small issue.  Interestingly, at our former church in Washington D.C., Capitol Hill Baptist Church, our senior pastor Mark Dever used to talk about the “ministry of moving to the middle,” or some such phrase.  Our auditorium was very, very crowded, and if people left the middle of the pew row empty then new arrivals had to edge past the end-sitters to find a place.  There would sometimes be a reminder from the pulpit just before the service started for us to move over.  And no one saved seats, as far as I know.  That would have been considered completely unacceptable.  We were there to participate in a wonderful service, sing beautiful songs, pray, and hear a thought-provoking, convicting, Bible-based sermon.  We weren’t there to sit with our friends, like a bunch of middle-schoolers.  We also wanted to be sure that there was a welcoming atmosphere to visitors, and telling someone that “this seat is saved” is profoundly unwelcoming.  It says to the person, “You’re not as important as the person I’m saving this seat for.”

Okay.  Enough of this particular rant.  I would encourage you, the next time someone says, “Can you save me a seat?” to say, “Why don’t I just meet you afterwards at the welcome center/concession stand/entrance”?  Let’s all act like grownups!