Did you know that furniture matters, especially in a church?  When you come into this room, either as a guest or a long-time member of ARBC, you may come into this place looking for specific pieces of furniture.  Do you know what pieces of furniture most look for?  A piano?  Choir loft?  Musical instruments?   This is very understandable.  With so many musical styles found in church, many of us are looking for music stylings—and in the process we take for granted two pieces of furniture that stand right in the center:  the pulpit and the table.

The pulpit stands in the center because of what it represents:  God speaking through His Word, the Bible!  God has spoken about who He is, what He’s done in rescuing us from our sin, and what He aims to do through us!

And the table, found directly in front.  This is intentional:  God speaks (as shown in the pulpit) and God acts (as shown in the table) in doing all that was necessary in delivering us from our sin by sending His Son in the cradle so that He could go to the cross for our sins.  The pulpit and the table shows that what God speaks, He does.

So the next time you walk into a sanctuary (no, I just cannot get used to saying auditorium), before you look at anything else, look to the pulpit and the table.  In our worship tradition, both of these are (as was said earlier) in the center.  For the central word we have is His word (John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17), and the central act of all Christianity was His death, burial, and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

Who would have thought that furniture could bring such joy?