I came to church the other day and someone was in my seat. 

I’m a pastor. I sit all the way up front. You gotta want it to take my seat. Which is to say that has never happened before, to me. 

I bet it has happened to you. We are creatures of habit. We tend toward the same routines. When we come to church we know that we will go into the right door and pass under the stairs and count however many rows, slide in and take so many big butt-scutches and that's the best seat. 

We joke about people being “in our seat” because we all know there are no assigned seats. But, c’mon! There is. And when someone is in “MY” seat I know it even if they don’t. 

I’ve heard horror stories of people in other congregations who have had this happen to them and they did not reflect the grace of Christ. You know the type. People who only worship Jesus because of what they get out of it. And when “those” people find someone in their seat they raise a stink. I’m happy to say I’ve never heard of us doing anything like that here at our worship. 

But it does happen that our seats get stolen. That’s a good thing. It’s an opportunity. 

When someone is in your seat, Jesus has given you a job. You know Jesus knows where you sit. It’s your seat. You’ve been there long enough that pew may have started to mold to your body. So, when someone shows up it is a gift. A gift from GOD! You have been given homework by God Himself to meet and greet that person. 

This is true not just of your seat but of your Pew Neighborhood. You know who sits around you. So, maybe it wasn’t your seat that was taken but it was the people who sit just in front of you or over to the side. You can see that these people are new and are not the normal sitters in your Pew Neighborhood. This is your gift from God as well. 

God has put this person in this seat because you, the displaced parishioner, and Pew Neighbor, are to see that this new-bee is welcomed into the Pew Neighborhood. And you have two tasks: help them through the service. It can be awkward coming to a new church. When do we sit? When do we stand? Can I come to take Communion (yes, all baptized Christians are welcome)? When we share the peace, kiss your spouse and make a B-line straight to the new person. (There is no more awkward time in a service than the Sharing of the Peace; it is THE make-or-break moment for visitors). 

Your other job is to remember their name. Write it in your phone. Better yet pray about them over the week. Because we know that when people are called by their name, they are more likely to come back. And when they come back, they develop habits, habits that last an eternity. 

Maybe the person in your seat isn’t new. Maybe they are trying out another service. Great! You have just met another member of the congregation. This happens all the time. We are a big church. We meet people we think are new but then learn they’ve been worshiping here for three decades. It’s a common feature of large congregations. 

So that you are aware, the official salute when we find a member that we thought was new to the church but is just new to us is a flying chest bump. If jumping into the air and slamming chests like a football player after a touchdown is not your speed, you can do a beginner’s version; I call it a hug. 

Finding someone in your seat is a great gift from God. God is entrusting us with the spiritual well-being of another. It’s like being a missionary, but the mission field comes to you. In a church that is growing and making disciples of all nations we should expect that it will happen to all of us, eventually. Even, maybe especially, to those of us who sit in our assigned seat every week.