Why are the front rows of church always so barren?
What prevents us from sitting in the front row?
My team is often asked to sit in the front row at church because we are guests and they use it as a way to honor us, other times it is because this is the only open spot in church big enough for all of us to sit. I often notice that if the row is small and we have to sit in the first two rows, we always fill up the second row first and the unfortunate stragglers have to sit in the front row.
Why is that?
Why is it that even on a Christmas service the front row could still be the last row to fill up?
Why are we willing to spend bundles of money on front row tickets to see our favorite band and the closer you get the better the concert is?
At concerts we want to be close, we want to be able to reach out and touch the band, we want to see their faces, feel the bass from the speakers, be in the action and feel like we are apart of the jam session going on on the stage.
In high school my pastor made the high school youth sit in the front row on Sundays. When it first started it was embarrassing, but the more we did it and the closer we got as friends the cooler sitting up front became. You wanted to be in the front row, not the second row, but right in the action.
So as I started wondering about this I asked a teammate why she thought people were afraid to sit in the front row of church.
We came up with a few ideas.
-Maybe the front row is reserved for special guests, or the pastors, or like at my church growing up, the high schoolers. So it’s not possible to sit there on Sunday.
-Maybe people feel like they have to pay attention more and be more engaged because the pastors can see them easier. So they don’t sit there because church has become more of an empty habit than a dedication to the Father.
-Maybe people feel like they need to blend in more, they have some shame that makes them feel like they don’t want to stand out. And stemming off of that people may feel that the church is judging them, so blending in makes people feel safer.
Even with those ideas and whatever others might surface, why wouldn’t people want to sit in the Splash Zone of Grace?
And if they let these ideas we thought of and other things hold them back from something as simple as sitting in the front row of church, will these things also hold them back from a front row seat with Jesus?
Will these things hold us back from living an abundant life in Christ?
“I came that they might have life and live it abundantly.” –John 10:10b
This life is ours for the taking. We just have to step into it. We have to ask for it from Jesus and then own it for ourselves.
Jesus doesn’t call us to be ordinary. He calls us to be extraordinary.
Jesus was born into an ordinary world and lived in an extraordinary seat.
He always took the front row seat to life, no matter what the cost, even His own life.
When you sit in the front row at a concert its probably because you are more invested in the band. You know the lyrics, you know all about them and by sitting front row you get to hear them better, see them better, and be apart of the action.
When you sit in the front row of church similar principles can be applied. You hear better, you see better and since you have to pay better attention, you get to be apart of the action.
Taking a front row seat to the show of our life is an opportunity to attend an awesome concert. When we accept God’s invitation to the front row, we are telling Him we want to hear Him better, see Him more, and be apart of the action. And we don’t care how much it costs because we love Him that much. We know His stories, we know His power, we know His goodness and we are invested in the band of the Holy Trinity.
We want to sing with the Holy Spirit, we want to jam with Jesus and we want to dance to the beat of God’s drum.
We don’t HAVE to sit in the front row at church on Sundays, But if shame holds us back from raising our hands in worship, if fear of judgment holds us back from walking up to someone and asking to pray, if the habituation of church creates dissent for the Father, we are doing something wrong. We have to step back and make sure that our reasons aren’t holding us back from accepting the invitation to sit in the front row of the life offered to us by Jesus.
If we don’t hold back we can take a front row seat to this life we are being offered. It’s not ordinary. It’s extraordinary. It might be different. It might be hard. It might cost us everything. But it’s the best concert we are ever going to attend.
