Moving Forward: The Bears in the Pews

by Lisa Allgood, Executive Presbyter

“Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”                – 1 Peter 5:7    

Uh, no – for once I wasn’t referencing those people in the pews resistant to change… ☺

A few weeks ago the Presbyters and Stated Clerks of the Presbyteries in the Synod got together to plan for the future and talk about how the Synod could best support the work we all do.  This group genuinely loves each other and works together beautifully – it is truly a joy to be part of a connectional church.

The place we met during the day was a beautiful old church in Michigan.  We met and ate in the chapel, but went into the sanctuary for one exercise and were delighted to find huge stuffed bears sprinkled throughout the pews.  When we asked the pastor why they were there, she said that several years ago a woman had brought one in for her autistic grandson, to calm him a bit, and they sort of – multiplied.  So now she finds little ones scrambling to sit in the pew with a bear (the bears magically move around the sanctuary, so they’re never in exactly the same pew all the time), or adults hugging one during worship after a particularly hard week.

Sometimes the bears are part of the children’s message, and sometimes part of the sermon.  They occasionally get dressed for a particular holiday.  Sometimes they even know when it’s a special birthday, or a baptism, or – in at least one case – a wedding.

They don’t leave the sanctuary – that’s a rule – and even the little ones know it, so they’re not dragged all over the education wing or into the Fellowship Hall.  But the smiles that broke out on the faces of the Synod folks that were meeting there were instantaneous, and genuine, and surprised, and beautiful.  So I imagine the same is true for the congregants who come every Sunday.  These are The Bears That Bring Joy.  Bears That Bring Comfort. Bears That Bring a sense of Peace.

The bears aren’t named Jesus.  But maybe they should be.  Because they are a beautiful, squishy, stuffed, huggable reminder that Love and Joy and Peace and Comfort lives in that sanctuary, which then lives up to the fullest definition of the word – a Safe Place.