Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Scott Gabrielson (right) and Chris Wright assemble new church seats that will be stored at a warehouse owned by the Church Furniture Store in Rocky Mount. Modular chairs are gradually replacing traditional wooden pews in many churches.

A piece of oak furniture at the Church Furniture Store in Rocky Mount features a cross design.

Scott Gabrielson unloads new seats that will be stored at a warehouse in Rocky Mount. The Church Furniture Store ships furniture throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

LYNCHBURG -- Settling back into one of the 5,000 or so padded chairs that Thomas Road Baptist Church chose over wooden pews when the new sanctuary opened in 2006, Jason Schonfelder does not miss traditional seating one bit.

"The difference between this and a pew is very apparent: This is comfy," he said.

Not just softer, individual chairs also offer room to spread out. Their arrangement, attached to each other in curved rows, allows more capacity yet reduces the need to squeeze congregants close together.

Schonfelder, a Thomas Road administrator who was involved in furnishing the new church, said that wooden pews typically afford each worshipper about 18 inches of personal overlay, compared with worship-chair width of 20 to 21 inches.

"It's just not reasonable to think 18 inches is going to cut it," said Schonfelder, who hastened to say there's more to make room for than anatomy. "Some people are going to come in and want to put down their Bible or purse beside them."

Saving souls requires winning backsides, a delicate truth that few churches talk about but one that is well known to congregations facing the crucial task of deciding on seating for a new church or renovation. Just as forgiveness is a watchword in most churches, allowances must be made in their accommodations.

"The 18-inch standard is an architectural concept based on the average space needed for two adults and two children," said Scott Gabrielson, president and chief executive officer of the Church Furniture Store based in Rocky Mount, which sells both pews and chairs. He added, "Most of us who enjoy a biscuit now and then are going to want more room."

Chairs now make up 85 percent of Gabrielson's church seating sales, compared with 5 percent in 1991, when his company opened.

At first glance, the cost of chairs seems daunting. Top-of-the line models -- so-called theater seats that became popular in movie multiplexes -- typically cost about $150 apiece, compared with roughly $100 per space for one person on a wooden pew.

But the cost of individual seats can be offset by their creation of more room between rows and the potential to fit numerous chairs into areas where a conventional pew won't fit. The rows can be temporarily expanded with movable chairs in matching colors that retail for about $40 each.

Those advantages persuaded Thomas Road Baptist's founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, to change his mind after initially choosing pews for his new sanctuary in 2006. Falwell died in May 2007, nearly a year after he met with Ron Ogden, vice president of marketing for Series Seating, a church furnishings company based in Indiana. Ogden used computer modeling to show Falwell that more than 5,000 chairs would fit in the same space where Thomas Road Baptist had planned pews to accommodate 3,700 people.

Falwell became an instant convert to chair seating, as evidenced in this excerpt from a letter he wrote to Series Seating soon after the meeting with Ogden: "Though we had already placed an order for pews from another company, we could not resist turning to the value of the Series product, even against the prospect of losing our down payment with the pew company."

The space between rows resulting from the fold-up seats adds another dimension to the comfort of worship, Ogden said. The seat bottoms automatically lift and fold against the chair backs when people stand. That typically results in a passageway of about 20 inches between rows, compared with 12 inches between the edge of a traditional pew's seats and the back of the next pew.

"The reality of a pew is that if you're standing and someone needs to get by you for altar call or to take their child to their bathroom, you're hemmed in," he said.

Still, wooden pews have loyalists. "I just like the appearance of wood, the feel it gives to the sanctuary," said the Rev. Keith Beasley, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Southwest Roanoke County.

Beasley's church features oak pews that seat 230 congregants. "I have never heard anyone complain about the pews," he said.

Indeed, the fortitude of Lutheran worshippers is noted in a painting in Good Shepherd's lobby that shows Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation, preaching in a 1500s-era church where everyone stands throughout the service because there isn't any seating.

Can congregants become too comfortable? It can happen, according to New Testament Scripture that tells of Eutychus, a young man who -- while listening to the Apostle Paul preach -- fell asleep and right out a third-story window.

But Eutychus dozed off far from the serenity of today's soft seats, and Seating Series' Ogden argued that the rigidity of pews can be a great distraction. "It's discomfort that makes you drift and not pay attention. Church chairs are designed so you're in your most alert position."

Of course even churches that stick with wooden pews often soften them via cushions or upholstery. Both of those options have a drawback in common with individual seats: The cloth is vulnerable to everything from sticky snacks and drinks to diaper leakage.

Pew cushioning and seat coverings must be replaced, on average, every 18 years, said Gabrielson. In contrast, pews often last for the lifetime of their sanctuary buildings, he said.

Or beyond. At Thomas Road Baptist, the wooden pews from the nearby previous sanctuary are still in that decades-old building, now used for youth plays and concerts. For such purposes, wood can be superior to cloth-covered seats, said Kenric Van Wyk, an acoustics engineer based in Grand Rapids, Mich., who advises churches.

"Wood reflects sound. Cloth absorbs sound," he said. But in crowded churches, the type of seating makes little difference in acoustics, Van Wyk said.

"People sitting there soak up sound."