To Add Members, Church Subtracts Pews

By NICOLE NEROULIAS
January 30, 2009
WHITE PLAINS

WHEN the Rev. Gawain F. de Leeuw stands before his flock at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church here on Sunday mornings, he sees the pews as a quarter full, not three-quarters empty.

Five months after removing more than a dozen of the long, red oak pews — more than a third of those in the church — to bring the shrinking congregation closer together physically and spiritually, he is open to any other cost-effective ideas to make St. Bart’s a more welcoming place.

“Fifty years ago, everybody used to go to church,” Mr. de Leeuw, the rector, said, smiling at about 50 people gathered in his 22 remaining pews last Sunday. “The sense of obligation people had is gone, but maybe that’s a good thing. Those of us who gather here are here because we want to be.” the rest