Psalm 34

There are those who love to sit front and center, there are those who love to sit in the back row, and they marry each other. 

My husband is the former: for him the front row provides the opportunity to devote his full attention to the speaker sans distraction in whatever setting he’s in, i.e. a college lecture or a church service. I, as you may have guessed, am the latter. The back row has a long history of being my home away from home: in elementary school I was always the tallest and naturally put in the back row for pictures and performances. As I quickly grew to six feet tall, I migrated to the back row in all situations on my own so as not to impede anyone’s view.

When I got to college I discovered that if I was running late for class or church it was easy to slip in unnoticed and easy to duck out early if seated on the back row. After getting married and having kids, sitting closest to the door during Sunday services felt like a necessity in case the baby fussed or the nursery workers needed rescuing from our toddlers.

To sum up: the back row has been instrumental in helping accomplish the goal of not drawing more attention to myself than my size already does.

When the kids were old enough to be independent in the Sunday school classes, I began to compromise with my husband about where we sat in church. I still don’t like to sit front and CENTER, but I’ve warmed to the idea of sitting front right or left, and he’s right: sitting up front just hits different. Consciously choosing to sit where eye contact with the pastor is inevitable (Pastors Alex and Jaime will definitely return it!) or where I can fully immerse myself in the music and really think about the words I’m singing has made all the difference in the experience I have on Sunday mornings. I do my best to leave the week’s baggage at the doors each Sunday, and sitting closer to the front allows me to put more distance between it and myself.

My preference for back row sitting is partly fear-based. No one is bothered by my sitting anywhere other than the back row on Sunday mornings, and how much have I missed out on by thinking otherwise? This shift in my thinking has changed the way I experience corporate worship. Is there a shift that needs to happen in your thinking this week? If you’re accustomed to the back-row life, try changing it up, even just once. I’ll save you a seat!

To read or re-read the summary/overview of this week’s passage, you can click here.