COLONY — Used pews, anyone?
The Colony Christian Church has its 20-some pews for sale at $50 apiece.
About 10 have been spoken for so far, said its pastor, Mark McCoy. The benches are 10 feet long, and despite being covered by a pleasing harvest gold unholstery, are hard.
One sits down with a thud.
“They’d be great as a hall bench,” McCoy suggests.
Colony Christian is replacing the pews with more “functional” seating: interlocking — and padded — chairs.
“There are several people with back problems” who will benefit from the change, McCoy said. In addition, “we’re trying to accommodate young families in the back.”
Seven pews converge at an acute angle in the back of the church, where families with small children like to sit, he said.
“It’s near the restrooms; it’s near the doors if they have to get up.”
Also, the space is set aside from the rest of the sanctuary, making a perfect room-within-a-room where kids could run and babies crawl — providing there was floor space to do so.
Only about a foot separates row ends. Set aslant, even that feels cramped.
Once all the pews are sold, McCoy said, the money will go toward purchasing the supportive chairs that can stand in rows, clusters, circles or “whatever configuration is needed at the time,” McCoy said.
That also will allow a center aisle in the church “should we ever want to have a wedding or funeral,” McCoy noted.
At present, three banks of pews mean walkways are right and left of the altar.
The change is part of an ongoing effort to bring the church into the present, McCoy said.
Also planned is updating the 70s-style wood paneling to “something more modern,” he said, unsure of what that would be.
McCoy isn’t being intentionally vague — the church really doesn’t have a grand master plan, but instead has been making improvements as finances allow.
“We just got central heat and air,” he said of the most recent change to the 116-year-old building. That was but a few months ago.
