First published by Religion News Service (RNS) This edition is from the Charlotte Observer, September 7, 2002

Posted on Sat, Sep. 07, 2002

Phew! That's one giant pew

Episcopal group's big bench aims to bridge generations and create liturgical reforms

RUSS BARNES

Religion News Service

ST. MARY'S CITY, Md. - "I feel as if I'm flying," says Maurine Holbert

Hogaboom, 90, as she rocks back and forth a bit in a giant oak pew, her feet

dangling way above the church floor.

The oversized pew puts her, in a way, on equal footing with an 8-year-old whose

feet dangle from ordinary pews each Sunday.

The giant pew, complete with a "modesty panel" in front, represents a new

movement in liturgical reform. The meaning it telegraphs is the need for

intergenerational communication within worship, according to the Rev. Caroline

Fairless, who directs the Rochester, N.Y., group Children at Worship.

Founded by Fairless, an Episcopal priest, and her husband, Jim Sims, the group

aims to promote liturgical experimentation in the Episcopal Church. Faith

affiliation is declining among U.S. teenagers and children. One solution may be

the giant pew.

"The pew provokes you to consider who you are," says Sims, its creator and

builder. "It's humorous. The pew brings out the humanity of everyone who sits

in it, young and old."

Said Fairless: "The purpose of Children at Worship is to devise ways to shock

ourselves into realizing that children are not only capable of experiencing the

divine, but are also key members of the community needed by adults to

understand God."

"Once you sit in the giant pew, there is no turning back to your old ways of

thinking about church," added Suffragan Bishop Catherine Roskam of New

York.

That's why Sims, a former construction contractor, built it.

Modeled after one he studied at his parish church in Wilmington, the pew is built

in eight sections, each small enough when disassembled to be shuttled around in

his van. It is twice the size of an ordinary pew, so that, when sitting in it, a 6-foot-

tall adult feels like a 3-foot-tall 8-year-old child. The leveling of age by means of

the pew has spiritual and psychological implications.

"No one is more marginalized than, say, a 3-year-old," Roskam said. "If we are

able to identify with a 3-year-old, we are able to learn from anyone marginalized

including the 3-year-old we, as adults, feel within ourselves."

While the liturgical reforms being promoted by Children at Worship have a

theological basis, the experiment is also practical. Although membership in the

Episcopal Church has grown slightly over the past several years, age inequities

exist. Episcopal Church average 57.9 years of age -- a contrast to the average age

of the U.S. population: 36.4. Such an age gap drains youth from the church.

"Children, as they grow up, vote with their feet and many leave the church," said

Fairless. "Young generations are not being nourished in the faith. So this

tradition is losing generations."

While using the big pew to dramatize some of the liturgical problems in

conventional worship settings (and suggest possible solutions), Children at

Worship stages workshops and experimental liturgy.

At one conference, Fairless and Sims set up the pew and led a dramatic approach

to liturgy including interactive Bible readings. The leaders were able to make the

drama conform to the traditional order of service for the Eucharist.

The experiments were staged using a variety of seating arrangements. Fairless

said it "takes much more work to prepare for a structured alternative liturgy

than it does to perform readings from the Prayer Book."

As Children at Worship members loaded pew sections into the van, Sims said:

"I am a person who has stayed in touch with the lad I used to be. I know many

who have locked away those children within themselves. The pew, I hope, may

liberate some of that childlike energy and allow it to flow ..."