I think of every concert that I have been to at church back home. Whether it's my family I go with or my friends, they always want to sit as close as possible. No matter which concert it is, the next day when we go back to church, I hear it from everyone how they saw me at the concert. I just think to myself..."come on...the concert wasn't for me it was for the people on stage!" I have even been accused of my head being right in the way of where the lead singer is standing. It's all good though! It really doesn't bother me too much.
Where does a fear of sitting in the front row at church come from? Maybe some of what I just talked about. Maybe a fear of what others think. The front row just isn't a very popular place at some churches. Usually the back rows fill up first. Part of the reason I usually want to get to church a little early is so I don't have to sit in the front. Yes, that sounds terrible. But it's the truth. It's tough! We think that it is scary up there!
The church I attend up here by school, Harvest Bible Chapel, they have it figured out. They don't let the back rows fill up until the rows up front are filled up first. They clearly do it because there are a lot of people that attend each Sunday and that is what orderly works best. I don't think they do it so you sit closer. It just helps with the flow. It's something so small, but so unique in so many ways. I know when I think of church back home, the first 4 rows are totally empty! It's like a ghost town.
Today I got the experience to sit in the very front row at church. I was a little nervous about it. I have yet to see someone in that congregation who is taller than me. I think it's a thing for tall dudes to be aware of where other tall dudes are at. It's like a secret code we have. So I knew that people would see where I was. Walking form the back of the church all the way up the front was pretty intense! You don't realize how far the front is when you have been sitting in the middle to back your entire life. So I finally made it to the front with a couple of my buddies who sit up there every Sunday.
Once I got up there, it was like a feeling I really cannot put into words. It was like a taste of heaven and how things should be. During worship it is so much louder in the front. You are really close to the worship team and you can hear everybody's voices from behind you. It was powerful. It was like a worship experience that I have never experienced. I think one of the things that made the front row so powerful was that there is no one else in front of you. Yeah, we show up to church, find our seats, worship, listen to sermons, fellowship and leave, that is usually how it goes. But when you sit anywhere else in the church there are always people in front of you. No matter how hard you try to put all your focus on what is going on during the service, you are still going to notice those people in front of you. You are still going to think about those people in front of you. It honestly makes it harder to focus. Sitting in the front, there wasn't any of that. It was me, my buddies beside me, and God. Nothing else in between. My focus wasn't on the people around me or in front of me, my focus was directly on the worship and the sermon, or in other words, directly on God.
I am not writing this to tell you all that you need to sit in the front row. That would be almost hypocritical because I have sat in the front row once. I am writing this with the thought of that is how things should be. We shouldn't care what other people around us think at church. We shouldn't care about the way other people do things. When we go to church our focus should be only on God and not what is around us. Same thing if we aren't in church, who cares what other people think. God is all-knowing. He knows what we think before we even think it. That is what matters.
To me a front row Christian is someone who isn't above any other Christian or anybody else, a front row Christian is someone who doesn't let the opinions of other and the thoughts of others determine what their lives should look like. It's you and it's God. It's a simple as that. I encourage you with that. I believe this is a taste of what it will be like in heaven someday. Just us, and God. No thought of anyone else but God. This whole front row Christian idea, is what being a Christian is all about.
I read onetime that fearing what people think about you vs. fearing God is like fearing a mouse vs. a lion. What is a little mouse going to do to you? A mouse is scrawny, small, and has no power. Then a lion, a lion could change your entire life. That is what God does for you. So next time you worry about what others think about you, they're just mice.
I hope this post was thought-provoking to you. I pray that it didn't sound arrogant, or boastful or like I was grouping Christians. That wasn't the point. The point was to paint a picture in your mind about what church and being a Christian should look like.
Sitting in the front row today was one of the best decisions that I have made in a long time, because I saw things from a new perspective. I encourage you to make a decision like that in the near future. It's a way that we grow and a way to conquer fear.
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