Article
So I wrote this for Realstudentlife.com and I don’t think it has been posted yet So here is the unedited script enjoy. We always say that to help cover us not taking the time to prepare something.
Hi my name is Drew Francis. I’ve always wanted to start a sentence off like that. I made the mistake of saying that I have nothing to do right now and the editor or Realstudent life overheard that. So. Here I am. I’ve been traveling on the student life tour so I’m in and out of the office every week, which is why I have find, my self with some free time. While I have been feeling detached from the people I work with I have been in the midst of what we do every week. I want to address something that I feel needs to be addressed. It is the art of “saved seat.” Now I know what you are saying what does this have to do with our faith. Trust me by the end you’ll get it. Saving seats are an old custom going back many years. I would think the Greeks where the first to do it. Within the last 100 years we had laws here in the south that made it unlawful for certain people to sit in those seat. Thank you to the civil rights movement. I can now sit anywhere I’d like. That now brings me to the typical worship service. In the days of my grandmother there were certain seats that families sat in and if you took those seat you were frowned upon. I find it funny that you look down on someone who made the effort to come to church but it was another time. Now that brings me to the events we do here at student life. We have tried to make student life events a first come first serve type of event. We give all equal chances to sit up front or in the back, whatever your desires maybe. This now brings me to trend that I guess is not a trend because it has been happening so often. It is now an epidemic. During tour we send people to a lunch break. We have found that people leave their belongings to, yes, save their seat for them to return. What I find hard to believe is that someone would feel that they have the authority to deny the rest of the audience to the very privilege, no right that they were afforded. Why do these same groups not say to themselves that they are going to put others before themselves and give up those seats for others to have that same privilege? To save that seat is to deny the very reasons that you come to an event for that renewing of fire and focus of service that you came looking for. Am I talking out of turn or does it not make sense that if leave a building for two hours you shouldn’t think that you could come back to the exact same spot that you left. Here is what I say. If you believe what I believe then stand up to those groups that take up entire rows only keep people from the very experiences that they have come to love. I know what you are saying, “Shouldn’t that be your job?” This is something that only the people can handle. Now here is the question I have for you. Do you believe that God can only work in the front row?
aaronivey.com
March 1, 2008 at 2:33 am //
wow, so true. it’s called the “worship zone.” didn’t you know that? MORE God in the first 5 rows.