Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve been monitoring the seating habits of churchgoers in the congregations I have known.

In fact, I wanted to form an organization to study these habits and call it the Pew Research Center, but that name was already taken.

Regular church folks can be somewhat peculiar about where they sit each week. I suppose that’s to be expected. We are creatures of habit in almost every area of our lives. Why should church be any different?

Before I migrated to my usual perch in the church choir, I tended to drift toward the same geographic location each Sunday as well. I could count on seeing familiar families in their usual location.

In the days before social media, it might be the only way you knew someone was sick or out of town. If there was a gaping hole in the section of the congregation where they usually sat in church, you knew you might want to check on them.

“Poor Mrs. Ritchie may have slipped on an ice cube in her kitchen, and could be lying unconscious on the floor for all we know”, we reasoned.

“Or maybe she slipped away for a secret rendezvous with that man we saw her with at the drug store last week. Her porch light hasn’t been on for several days now, you know.” Imaginations would run wild with speculation.

But I also observed the dark side of pew politics. Some families grew too comfortable with their digs, and turf wars ensued.

I was told once of a visitor who dared to invade the territory of a powerful church family one Sunday morning. He was politely warned of his infraction by a well-meaning woman in a nearby pew.

“You may want to move down just a little”, she whispered. “The Brown family (name changed for legal reasons) sits there.”

In fact, Grandma Brown had been sitting there so long, the church had placed a plaque on the side of the pew to honor her. I had always envisioned cobwebs growing around her as she worshipped there each Sunday.

Out of respect for the nearly departed, the visitor reluctantly moved. There was always plenty of room down front where no regular member seemed to want to sit. Why is that, I wonder?

About once a year, the pastor would include a warning against such practices in his morning sermon. “Never let it be said that a visitor to our congregation feels unwelcome for any reason.”

Then he would get more specific. “If you arrive one morning and find someone new sitting in your pew, graciously find another. It won’t kill you to experience worship from a different angle for one Sunday.”

Some members would squirm with discomfort upon hearing those words. Apparently it would indeed kill a few of them, maybe even dear Mrs. Brown who had just received the golden bible the week before for her many years in that pew.

These days, I sit in a choir loft on most Sundays. Lofts are a good twenty-five or thirty feet above floor level, and I get a good view of many congregational happenings.

From my elevated perch, I can tell you whose hair is beginning to thin, whose children are the worst behaved, and who is checking out of the service early.

But on the Sundays I sit below, I like to move around a little. I’ve become a person who enjoys the view of life from many different angles. I even grow a little uncomfortable when I feel I’ve seen the same sights from the same vantage point for too long. Maybe there’s a sermon in that.

I have to admit though, one of the reasons I move around is the devilish delight I get when I think I may be sitting in someone’s regular seat.

Maybe even Mrs. Brown’s.