Providing The Best Listening Environment

Seating Is Integral To The Efficacy Of Any Space

It doesn’t matter how well-insulated a building is, how modern its design, or how eloquent a given speaker may be who is in the process of giving a sermon or a lecture. If there isn’t a comfortable means of viewing the speaker, it’s going to make a crowd restless.

Today’s society is filled to the brim with individuals caught by things like technology. While technology gives more knowledge to us than ever before, making it possible to access entire libraries of information at the swipe of a screen, it also inculcates a deficit of attention.

Today it’s easier than ever to zone out using a tablet or smartphone. If a speaker is boring, this will definitely happen. It can even happen if a speaker is engaging!

But that’s only half the issue. Certainly it’s impossible to take a step backward technologically speaking; but an even more distracting agent during an auditory lecture is the seating involved.

Think back to your childhood. Is it easier or more difficult to pay attention when seating is uncomfortable? If your chair is a hard pew, or hewn wood, or stone—or even the floor—will the pain which comes from prolonged sitting make it easier or more difficult for you to pay attention to that which is being said from the podium?

Churches Understand Intrinsically

According to SanctuarySeating.com, when you get the right church chairs, “…you will never have to worry about [your] chairs, ever.” This is because they’ll be designed such that they not only provide the right level of comfort, they also stand the test of time.

But there’s more to church seating than simple comfort. Most reading this have sat in a pew that had some level of cushion. Yet when the child at the end swung his or her feet, the whole row would tremble, if slightly; distracting everyone sitting on it. Likewise, during Christmas or Easter pageants, moving seats becomes difficult, as old oaken pews are heavy, and hard to store.

Just as important as the comfort which defines a seating arrangement is its mobility. Pews aren’t generally very mobile—nor were they designed to be. Generally, a pew sits where it has been placed, and perennially.

A better option than the conventional church pew is the stackable cushioned chair. Cushions on the backrest and seat provide comfort, as well as insulation in stacking for ease of storage. Additionally, a child swinging his or her legs won’t distract an entire row of parishioners; and if you need to move half a row for a pageant in spring or winter, it doesn’t involve completely upsetting the whole row.

Give Your Listeners The Tools They Need To Succeed

While there is something to be said for the intellectual stoicism which allows listeners to endure uncomfortable seating, in reality this is just an additional obstacle against communication. Positive emotional response to an environment facilitate better learning. Remove this obstacle, and those who need to hear the message you have to give will be more receptive.