Pew

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

Pews are the long benches in rows that fill a traditional church, with a shelf on the back for hymnals and a rack for envelopes and pencils, sometimes with kneelers that fold down. They face the front, they're usually wood, and they're famously uncomfortable. In many churches, families have sat in the same pew for decades — it's not assigned, but everyone knows. Modern churches often use individual chairs instead, which are more comfortable and flexible and which older members regard as a loss.

The word has a second life as a stand-in for the congregation: "the view from the pew" is the ordinary member's perspective, and "the pews were full" means attendance was good.

Why people say it

Pews exist because congregations needed somewhere to sit once sermons got long (before the Reformation, most churches had no seating; people stood). They became, over centuries, the physical form of a congregation — rows of people facing the same way, singing together, a family in each. The attachment to "our pew" is really an attachment to the church as home, and pastors who remove pews learn that quickly.

How to respond

Sit wherever there's room. If you want to be inconspicuous, the middle rows, near the aisle, are safe; the front row is for the bold. If someone tells you that you're in their pew, laugh and move, or don't — they're teasing, mostly. If a church has chairs instead of pews, that tells you something about its age and style. If you find a pew uncomfortable, you're in good company; there are cushions in some churches and complaints in all of them.

If you hear it in different churches

Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and older Baptist churches have pews, often with kneelers in the liturgical traditions. Orthodox churches traditionally have no pews — people stand — though many in America have added some. Contemporary evangelical and non-denominational churches use chairs, as do many church plants meeting in rented space. Quaker meetinghouses have benches facing each other.

Where does “Pew” come from?

Medieval churches were mostly open floors; benches and then enclosed "box pews" appeared in the 1300s–1500s, and after the Reformation, with long sermons, seating became standard. Pews were often rented or owned by families — "pew rents" funded churches into the 1900s, and a family's pew reflected its social rank, which James 2 warned against. The free-pew movement of the 1800s ended rents in most Protestant churches. Chairs began replacing pews in the 1970s–80s for flexibility; the "pews versus chairs" fight is a fixture of church renovations.

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