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This will be where I preach my first sermon for the Brigus-Cupids-Georgetown Pastoral Charge.

This particular pulpit is located at Brigus United Church.
 
Smack dab in the middle eh. That really puts the minister in a commanding position - not that there is anything wrong with that. In my own experiences the pulpit has always been off to the side of the altar. I'm curious now. Is my experience unusual - or the placement of that pulpit? Wonderful array of organ pipes too!!
 
KayTheCurler said:
Smack dab in the middle eh. That really puts the minister in a commanding position - not that there is anything wrong with that. In my own experiences the pulpit has always been off to the side of the altar. I'm curious now. Is my experience unusual - or the placement of that pulpit? Wonderful array of organ pipes too!!
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Placement of the pulpit is informed by theology.

Methodists historically place the pulpit to the centre of the sanctuary to emphasize the centrality of preaching.

Presbyterians historically place the pulpit to the side and balance that with a lectern opposite. Scripture will be read from the lectern and the message preached from the pulpit. The emphasis is on the sacred space between the reading of God's word and the teaching of it.

There were precious few Presbyterians in NL ever. I guess the Scots just couldn't stomach being so close to the English. The Presbyterian Churches in NL, as far as I can recall, refused to participate in Church union so we do not have many congregations with a Presbyterian Architecture in the sanctuary.
 
paradox3 said:
It's a lovely looking sanctuary. Wishing you well in your new charge @revjohn !
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Thank you. This is just the one pulpit. I have two preaching points but we only have one service a Sunday so we move back and forth between the two.

I will post a picture of the other pulpit below.
 
revjohn said:
historically place the pulpit to the centre of the sanctuary to emphasize the centrality of preaching.

Presbyterians historically place the pulpit to the side and balance that with a lectern opposite.
Click to expand...

I did not know this. My family UCCan was built long after union (late fifties) but was in the Presbyterian style. Wonder why, since as a new congregation without roots in any of the founding denominations, they could have gone either way.

And Dad is up in Heaven drooling over those organs.:cool:
 
Those r quite the pipes, there
(Must be quite the effort 2 clean them...good thing people don't have to blow them with their breath...though, as the inspiration strikes)
 
Inannawhimsey said:
Those r quite the pipes, there
(Must be quite the effort 2 clean them...good thing people don't have to blow them with their breath...though, as the inspiration strikes)
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I have no idea how to clean a pipe organ, though I imagine it is a fairly involved process. And these are small ones. Imagine cleaning one of the thousand+ pipe, five manual monsters.
 
Mendalla said:
I have no idea how to clean a pipe organ, though I imagine it is a fairly involved process. And these are small ones. Imagine cleaning one of the thousand+ pipe, five manual monsters.
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Thousand+ cherubs lathered alternating in soap and mineral oil each of them "played" through each tube?
Deep theological question of the ages: "How many angels can clean a pipe organ?"
 
revjohn said:
Placement of the pulpit is informed by theology.

Methodists historically place the pulpit to the centre of the sanctuary to emphasize the centrality of preaching.

Presbyterians historically place the pulpit to the side and balance that with a lectern opposite. Scripture will be read from the lectern and the message preached from the pulpit. The emphasis is on the sacred space between the reading of God's word and the teaching of it.
Click to expand...


[FONT=Open Sans, sans-serif]Interesting re the centrality, and then the balance.[/FONT]
thanks for that.
 
And United churches? It seems we have a little of every tradition when it comes to pulpit placement, including some that also have lecterns. Interesting.
 
Nancy said:
And United churches?
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Well you have to look at Sanctuaries constructed after Organic Union in 1925 to try and discern if we have a unique architectual expression.

At Waterford United, my last permanent gig, we had a fire and were forced to rebuild a demolished sanctuary. They decided not to simply replace but to do something new.

So the raised chancel was removed meaning the pulpit was brought much lower to the floor.

About the height thing--it isn't about the minister being above everyone--it is about sight lines. There are two ways to maximize the sightlines. One is to raise the speaker up so that your view of the speaker is not impeded by the head in front of you. The other is to slope the floor up to the back so that again, heads don't block the view of what is going on.

Anyway back to Waterford. The decision was made to make every object on the chancel portable. I could, quite literally, put the pulpit anywhere on the stage I wanted whenever I wanted. We moved it around quite a bit through the year.

One concern was for the choir who was likewise mobile. When did the sun come into the windows on which side of the sanctuary through the year. We would move the entire choir out of direct light so that they would not cook during worship. So spring and fall they would be on one side and I would be on the other. At some points in the year we lined up and they would be behind me.

The Altar would be moved around also, as would our baptismal font. Seasonal ornamentation worked better in some places than others so we would arrange everything accordingly.

Since I tended to wander away from the pulpit during preaching times it didn't really matter where it was I would usually end up in the central aisle somewhere.

And that by design. Because everyone sat near the back and once threatened that if they wouldn't come to the front I would come back to them. They laughed as if to call my bluff.

Game on.

But back to the matter at hand. There are not a lot of sanctuary lay outs that can be employed if one is fixing the worship stations. If your pulpit is build in then once it is fixed it is fixed for good.

Because the typical sanctuary is a rectangle there are a few questions to deal with. How many aisles and how are they arranged? Single central aisle, two straight aisles, two or more radial aisles.

Once you have decided on the general lay-out for the parishioners then you work out the sight line issue. You do not want people stuck behind pillars and such.
 
A minister, I know, held us spellbound after a conference annual meeting(in the pub)

telling us about a book he was reading that likened the sanctuary to sex. The pulpit and

the penis, it seems was part of the discussion. Have you ever heard about this book?

or did he have too many brews and he was really reading Alice in Wonderland?
 
crazyheart said:
Have you ever heard about this book?
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I have never even heard of such a book.

Obviously written by somebody mainlining Freud. It might be a latter psychoanalytical take which operates only with psychoanalytical framework in place. Theological architecture tends to be more informed by theology and architecture.
 
Mendalla said:
I did not know this. My family UCCan was built long after union (late fifties) but was in the Presbyterian style. Wonder why, since as a new congregation without roots in any of the founding denominations, they could have gone either way.

And Dad is up in Heaven drooling over those organs.:cool:
Click to expand...

Quite a mixed bag really. I've seen former (and current in the USA) Methodist churches with pulpit and lectern and former Presbyterian churches with pulpit in the centre. When I was in Newfoundland, all three of my churches were formerly Methodist, but two had lecterns and only one had the pulpit in the centre. I'd agree that pulpit in the centre is more common in Methodist churches, but certainly not universal.

I don't entirely agree with John that preaching was central to the Methodist tradition. It was important, certainly, and John Wesley had high expectations from his preachers, but the Eucharist was still the central element in Methodist worship. That didn't change. Preaching was lifted up, and the understanding of the sacrament modified, but Eucharist was still central.
 
The "divisions" of what happens where - ie pulpit for preaching & scripture read by the minister; lectern for Bible reading by lay people, or reading of other secular texts, making announcements etc, both possibly used for prayers - but again divided with ministry in the pulpit, lay at the lectern - must be a bit mysterious & perhaps odd for those who don't know the history of the architecture etc. On a recent Sunday our minister scurried down a few steps from the pulpit and across the chancel area to make an announcement at the lectern, then scurried back to the pulpit, although he no further prayers or preaching to deliver. Seemed so odd that he felt he couldn't just continue to speak from the pulpit side, and then retreated again to the pulpit. If I was unchurched (or maybe not, as the though occured to ME!) it would just seem a bit weird.
 
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