They interview Jamey Jones of Rainsville Church Pew Company about the process of building and selling pews to local churches. Joshua Noel and T. J. Blackwell interrogate the artisanal and industrial methodologies by which he explicates design decisions, material selection, upholstery, and the finishing techniques that confer durability and aesthetic coherence upon sanctuary furnishings. He delineates how denominational predilections, budgetary parameters, and pragmatic concerns such as anchoring, acoustics, and modularity shape both bespoke commissions and extensive restoration projects. They examine the logistical continuum from site assessment and CAD layouts to production sequencing, delivery, and the twenty-five year structural warranty that evidences the company’s quality assurance. He recounts historical restorations and the intergenerational continuation of craft within the family enterprise, and they reflect on how seating arrangements materially influence liturgical orientation, communal cohesion, and the collective memory of congregations.

Joshua Noel and T.J. Blackwell converse with Jamey Jones of Rainsville Church Pew Company about the craft of making church pews and related sanctuary furniture. He explains the family history and the continuity of a multi‑generation trade. He describes practical choices churches must make about materials, padding, stain, and cost, and he frames those choices in terms of denomination and budget. The hosts and the guest treat the work as both technical and pastoral. They discuss pricing by the foot, the availability of different end styles, and the company’s 25‑year structural warranty.

The conversation moves from design to production. Jamey clarifies which processes remain hand‑crafted and which are aided by machinery. He details joinery, upholstery, finishing, and the firm’s approach to custom orders. He recounts site visits, committee showings, and how a CAD floor plan guides pew layout to preserve aisles and comfort. He also outlines restoration work, showing how refinishing and matching can economically preserve historical pews and maintain continuity for congregations.

The hosts reflect on wider implications. They probe how seating and furniture shape worship, community, and memory. The guests note the logistics of installation and fastenings and the regional service radius. The exchange yields practical counsel for church leaders, including budget planning, the value of durable finishes, and the cultural weight of pews as artifacts that carry family and congregational stories.

Takeaways:

• TJ explains that Paul teaches salvation is a gift of God through grace, not by works.
• They emphasize that the church's identity is God's workmanship and not the result of human pride or achievement.
• Jamey recounts the company history and details that pews are custom made with varied materials and a twenty five year structural warranty.
• Jamey Jones explains that pew pricing is calculated by the foot and that churches choose style, fabric, and finish through samples and visits.
• Jamey describes restoration as cost effective and heritage preserving, and notes that pews must be fastened down to receive warranty coverage.
• They discuss how seating layout shapes worship, noting pews foster communal closeness while chairs allow versatile configurations for different services.
• TJ encourages listeners to sit closer in worship seating as a practical action to foster unity and visible community.

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Ephesians 2, 3, 10 in the new American Standard Bible among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even we were, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In the book of Ephesians, Paul is writing to the church at Ephesus concerning what it means to be the Church.

Here, Paul is explaining how we are all sinners and how the church was made good by Jesus's work so that none can be proud of our own good, but rather that we can credit God for all the good that The Church does.

T.J. tiberius Juan Blackwell.

How important do you think it is that we be reminded that part of the church's identity is.

Is who God made us to be, not of our own actions or of our own accord, but of God's craftsmanship?

Yeah, I think it's really easy for people to slip into the self and forget that what we are doing is for a higher purpose, is for God and in God's name, and instead focus on like, oh, I did so well.

Look at what I did, look at what I've done.

Nothing.

You do nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we talk about what goes into building the church behind the scenes of the church, really.

Don't get me wrong, it's all God at the end of the day.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in faith by works and, and the like.

But you have to remember the work isn't your work.

Yeah.

Amen.

Fairly verily, such things.

Welcome to Holy Logistics.

We're back on the Whole Church podcast, figuring out how the church gets made, asking, you know, about building pews, about organs.

A few weeks ago, we asked about how sermons get developed.

So we're looking into the different parts of church and how does it all come together.

So today we have a very special interview.

I'm Joshua Knoll here with the the co host who, who started it all, the first podcaster ever, TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And more seriously, we are here with a really special guest.

We're here with Jamie Jones of Rainsville Church Pew Company and we're going to be asking him about a building pews and what goes into that.

Yeah.

That's right, by Ted Johnson.

They specialize in custom built church pews and other sanctuary furniture, combining traditional craftsmanship with modern manufacturing.

They also restore, refinish and reupholster older church furniture, helping churches preserve pieces that may have been used for generations.

So that we're going to get into that some more later.

But you can go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts.

It helps promote the show, raise money for podcasting needs, and gets others to know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church.

I have a personal favorite.

It's called the TJ quote on the back.

There's nothing on the back.

It just has our logo on the front.

It's nice because he's a man.

A few words.

Yeah, I try to be.

Yeah, I do try.

And you also check out some of the other shows on the Unazile podcast network like Systematic Geekology.

TJ and I are both on that.

I've kind of been on a somewhat hiatus with Be Living Water, but I'm pick that back up soon.

Talking more about some Les Miserable now that work has settled down a bit.

So be looking for that.

Yeah, more stuff on the network.

This is FYI for our listeners.

Our guest today, Jamie Jones, has requested to opt out of a few of the segments that we usually do.

He just wanted to talk about his company, which perfectly fine.

We want to know how pews get made.

So we're going to have kind of insert him our interview with him about the building of pews with Rainsville Church Pew Company and we'll do some of the other stuff, just me and TJ because we don't want to miss it.

This stuff's fun.

Like of course, our favorite sacrament here on the whole church podcast, a sacrament for church unity.

Because you can't be divided when you're being as silly as I like to be.

Tj, you'll answer first because I don't know an answer to this question.

What's a game that ghost would be really bad at?

Tag.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking of that.

Then I was asked Too easy.

I don't want to say that.

Tekken8Twister.

Or would they be really good?

I think they're really good, actually.

Does that, does that.

How does that work?

Because they're not touching the thing.

Depends on the ghost.

Where are they?

I. I can only think of things.

They'd be really good.

They'd be great at hide and go seek.

Would they?

I think.

I mean, I feel like probably they.

Might only be good at hiding.

True.

You know, I feel like they'd be bad at Smash Bros. See, that's.

That's too easy.

Yeah, well, you said tag.

Yeah, but it's a video game ghost.

Probably isn't young enough to.

Football a lot of contact.

You know, I'm just not sure ghosts can.

Are tangible enough to play well.

So I'm gonna go with yeah.

Can they catch though?

We'll see.

I'm hoping they're bad at it.

Put a lot of money on this game.

Put a lot of money on this fantasy football game.

Yeah.

Sorry, I apologize.

So for this series we have a special segment called Fact or Fantasy where we're asking everyone a series of rapid questions to start off to help us get a sense of what is fact and what is fantasy concerning how the sausage, as it were, of the church gets made.

I'm gonna do this with Josh now and then at some other point I might do it.

Who knows?

So, Josh, what monthly expenses does a church have that many people may not think of?

Feel like?

People don't think about church's water bill, especially if they have a baptismal pool, they gotta fill that thing, you know?

Yeah.

What's a struggle that church leadership faces regularly that may shock some people to think about perception?

Like, like normal encounters with people, like grocery stores and stuff.

Like if they know you're a pastor, people treat you kind of weird.

Yeah.

So what's the most interesting room in your church and how does the layout of the room serve the functionality of the room?

So I mostly have to attend online because my job makes this hard.

Most interesting room I can think of is actually the same.

Oh, actually no.

I don't know what it's called.

But there's a glass walled apart room that's like.

You could see the sanctuary, but it's soundproof so that people with children can go in there and still be like in the sanctuary apart, but technically in a separate room and their kids aren't disrupting service.

So that's kind of cool.

Cool.

How important is the layout of the worship area in a church building?

Extremely.

I feel like the layout either emphasizes a man on stage in a performance, or it can emphasize a community, everyone being together, depending on how you lay that room out.

True.

So in one or two word answers, could you explain who is responsible for each of the following areas at your local church?

And you can just say not applicable or.

I don't know if either of those answers are relevant.

Landscaping.

Probably a board, but I don't know.

Budgeting aboard.

I do know that hospital visits, the past doors.

Plural, you know, I don't think it all falls on one person.

But wedding and funeral arrangements, you do that yourself.

We'll do the.

They do the preaching.

I think you make the arrangement yourself.

You know, theological correction.

Still want to go with the past doors, but that might also be a congregate thing.

Got a little bit of hierarchical thing, but I'm not sure how it works.

Building maintenance, I don't know.

Worship set lists.

We do have a worship pastor who chooses the hymns and stuff for each service.

Teaching, mostly the pastors, but occasionally, since my church is in the triangle, we get some interesting teachers.

Occasionally doing different stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Some podcast.

Occasionally.

Parking lot traffic.

Yeah.

You're on your own.

Completely.

I've been to that church.

Parking lot's got about 10 spots in it.

Good luck.

Oh, there's another one behind the other building.

It's just hard to find.

Sure.

I wouldn't know.

Yeah, I get princess parking.

I only show up on special occasions.

That's how.

Yeah.

Greeting and welcoming people.

I hate to say I'm oblivious, but I'm oblivious.

I walk in and go see the pastor because he's my best friend and I.

Or one of my best friends and I just like to, you know, give him a hug and tell him how much I love him.

And I don't know if someone's trying to greet me before that moment.

It's a long drive.

I've just be lining it to him, you know.

That's pretty funny.

I bet they are.

Yeah.

Well, there's probably someone who tried to greet me and I just didn't notice.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, good job.

Thanks.

Hard to do this out of order.

Yeah.

Could you tell us something about how you first came to the faith, Jamie, and how you joined the Rainsville Church pew Company?

Well, it's pretty long story, actually, but my grandfather actually was building church pews when I was a kid, so I saw it going on as a young child, and for some reason, I don't know, call it fate, luck, whatever you want to Call it, I end up marrying a girl that her daddy's doing the same thing and her grandfather had started it.

Another actually, they were both Johnsons, believe it or not.

My grandfather and her grandfather too.

No relation, but they were both woodworkers in that business, you know.

And so, you know, I actually come out of high school, went into service, had other intentions in mind.

Electrical trade, actually.

And it was getting close to time for me to get out of service.

And the then owner, my wife's father, Glenn Kilgore, he started talking to me about going to work for him.

And I never really give that any thought.

Actually.

I went into the service to get a trade out of the whole deal.

Anyway, one thing led to another.

Long story short, I ended up agreeing to go to work for him.

And I got out of service on the 17th of March, went to work at Rhinesville Church Pew on the 26th of March.

So I had nine days off.

I planned on taking a couple of months, but he wasn't having no part of that.

So I went right to work.

And here we are, 40, what, four years later?

I'm not running this deal now.

My youngest son, John, him and his wife Casey are actually now running the Church Butte Company and have been for a couple of years now, still around all the time.

I ain't doing nothing.

As it should be.

Put in a lot of time and enjoying the idea, the fact that fresh ideas, fresh minds, you know, 40 something years, a long time.

And so, oh yeah, it's all good.

And the future looks really bright.

So, you know, we're excited.

Yeah, yeah.

No, that's awesome.

Yeah, it's interesting.

You know, a lot of people might be listening to this going church pews.

Really?

Why are we talking about that?

Because, you know, it seems really simple to some people and other people are thinking a lot of modern churches don't really use pews.

Whatever.

Those churches are lame.

But some people think church pews are just kind of like simple wooden benches.

But your company has a long history.

Some of what you just mentioned, a lot of work goes into building a church pew.

So what would you say to anyone who's listening who might not know about the history and the work that goes behind what you create at Rainsville Church Pew Company?

Well, the.

To begin with a pew is just like going out and buying a car.

You buy a car, you got a certain kind of tires you want on it, you got a certain kind of seat covering you want on it.

You want a color, particular color and all that.

Well, pews are the same thing.

Some churches want a really comfortable padded pew.

Some churches want a pretty comfortable seat, but they want a wood back.

They like wood.

Some churches don't even want any padding.

They want all wood.

Yeah.

Be standing up.

It's quite a bit of, quite a bit of variety and all that, you know, and, and of course, different denominations have different, different choices.

You know, some denominations, all they, they don't get padding.

You know, it's not, not in their, their DNA, so to speak.

But.

And in some churches, all they want is Patty.

So we just try to, you know, we offer a lot of different styles and designs.

And so typically when a church comes in here, we know who they are and what denomination they are, so we automatically start talking to them about what we think they're going to prefer, you know, choices that they would be interested in.

And so, you know, we get off into what styling they might like, want, you know, and then we get off into talking about, well, how much money you want to spend.

You know, you wanting to, are you on a, so to speak, a Cadillac or are you wanting a Volkswagen?

You know, what are you wanting to do middle of the road?

Is that what we're after?

Yeah.

So what, sorry, what goes into that decision?

Like, you explain the basics to us.

Well, like, how you decide the style and shape that would best fit a church before you start letting them pick and choose.

And.

Well, typically denominations have particular stylings, you know, like Baptist churches, for example.

Baptist churches, they.

Most Baptist churches, like, stuff is painted.

They won't paint it in panels.

They want a lot of padding, you know.

Right.

Catholic churches, they don't want no paint and they don't want no padding.

So you kind of.

The church, you kind of know what you're getting into when you, when you meet with them.

And so basically what we really have to understand from the church is kind of budget we're working with, you know, are we $100 a foot pew or we want a $200 a foot pew?

Which one we want.

How much money you willing to spend here?

You know, so that's how you price a few, is by the foot.

Yeah, that's typically by the foot.

Yeah, I've had no idea.

Yeah, typically by the foot.

And then the ends can offset that price somewhat.

We've got a, you know, half a dozen ends that say if, say if you buy a pew, that's $120 a foot, we've got A half a dozen ends that are included in that price.

They're relatively simple, but, you know, even though they're simple, and then we do a lot of simple stuff, but all of our product, everything is covered with a 25 year structural warranty.

So no matter if you buy simple or if you buy the finest thing we got, you get the same warranty with that, with either one of those pews.

So.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I just, I never occurred to me that we're buying by the foot here.

Like it's worth.

Yeah, I would have never thought of like how you price a Pew.

So, Mr. Jones, you mentioned, you know, some about Baptists liking certain things in different domination with different pews.

I think I've only ever seen like, you know, there's those pews that have the part for where you kneel.

I've only seen that at like Catholic churches and Orthodox churches.

Do you ever get other churches getting the part for the neol on the back of the pew?

Not, not very often, actually.

You know, having done this 40 something years, we've put kneelers on pews in one Baptist church, to my knowledge, Kentucky.

And I really, when it come in, I really had to take a double take because I couldn't believe it.

And I even called the people and said, hey, now, are you sure you know what you're asking for here?

And they were, yeah, we're sure.

You know, but the thing about it is, this is how crazy things get sometimes.

They didn't want them to kneel on, they wanted them to prop their feet on.

That's probably how I'd use it.

Attitude, you know, prop their feet on it.

And something else too, about pew styling.

We also build a ton of custom furniture.

You name it, if you can draw it, or if we can draw it, we can build it.

So.

And a lot of churches get a little extravagant with that because you'll have church members that they're building their pews, they got a budget they're trying to fit into and all this stuff.

And then you got one guy in the church that says, hey man, y' all pick the pulpit out.

I don't care if it's $5,000, I'll pay for it.

You know, so we do a lot of, a lot of custom work because of that kind of attitude sometimes.

So you build the pulpits too?

Yes, pulpits, tables, chairs, you name it, we build it.

Screens, frontals, rear distances for the wall, picture frames, kitchen cabinets.

I mean, some churches, we build their kitchen cabinets for them.

When they build a Kitchen for the church, you know.

Yeah, that's cool.

And then we also do refinishing.

So we take, you know, we've built a lot of pews over the years, so now we'll have churches that I put, I built pews for in the 90s.

Well, here's what we want to do.

We're going to build a brand new building.

We want to use them pews we bought from you in 92 in our new building, but we need 25 more just like what you built us.

And so we take what they have and refinish those and build them 25 new ones to match what we built in 92 and come back then with 50, so to speak, just to lock pews and everything looks like it's all new.

So it's, it's, it's a very cost effective way for them to get what they want, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting because I know, you know, growing up in the 90s, you know, there was that whole like, wave of like glass pulpits and like different things.

And I know more recently I've seen more wooden pulpits again.

And I know there's a lot of studies where a lot of people are going from those, like, mega churches, more modern churches, back to Catholicism, Orthodox, you know, some of those older style churches with this kind of influx of like more younger people being interested in more traditional churches.

Do you.

Are you guys getting any more orders for pews and stuff as a business been booming, or is it.

People got off into, you know, we can, you know, Instead of buying 40 pews, you know, 12 foot long, we buy 200 chairs for about half the money, you know.

Well, the problem with that is, is a couple of problems, actually.

One, with chairs, unlike pews, you can't anchor them to the floor.

So most churches, I know, my church, there's about four or five of us that do everything.

Most churches are the same way.

So if you put chairs in there, all of a sudden you've got.

You've created a couple more jobs.

One, somebody's got to keep them lined up, and two, somebody's got a vacuum under all those legs and clean around where the pews or the chairs are.

I didn't think about that.

You ever had a church ask y' all for chairs?

Altar chairs.

Ask y'.

All.

Yeah, oh sure, yeah.

When we've, we've sold thousands, you know, even though we wouldn't, wasn't liking it, we were still selling them.

But what I was doing at one time I was buying frames from a company in Mexico and bringing frames in here and building seats and backs to go in them and up posting them and selling them.

But the chair I was building was a 16 gauge chair which is ready for a 275 pound person.

The cheap chair that come out that really messed the market up was rated for a 200 pound person.

And that's downright dangerous really.

Today's world, most everybody's a little bigger.

200 Pound chair, it'll hold up a 250 pound person.

But if that person twists in that chair, then there's a chance it might explode underneath them.

I mean, you know, it's kind of crazy set up.

I just unlocked a new fear.

So that's.

Yeah, as you know, that 200 limit, I might live in the Carolinas, but I still got that Kentucky boy jeans and I had that 200.

Yeah.

So we talked a little bit about some of the features like the, the kneelers and some of the ends.

What are some of the other features that come with pews?

Like I know you have the little racks in the back.

Are there anything else that maybe I wouldn't typically think of?

Yeah, you can get, you know, of course several styles of hymnal racks, three book, four book capacity.

And we also do him a racks the entire length of the pew, you know, so you can have a bunch of books in there.

Different, different styles and stuff.

Also we have vistas carded pencil holders, you know, for the, for church.

Yeah, forgot about that man.

We've done everything.

We've built Kleenex box holders to go on the backs of the pews.

Those are nice.

Yeah, done that.

And we built ledges on the backs of them to where you could actually lay your Bible up in front of you while the preacher was doing his thing.

And you could lay your Bible open in front of you and it'd be holding it up for you.

I like that.

Yeah, that's cool.

That's super cool.

And then we built, we built speaker boxes for the backs of pews and then they put them in and they wire them up.

Looks like a stereo system for your house, you know.

So everybody's got a speaker right in front of them practically.

So.

Yeah.

Well, I say it's cool if your church is big enough.

That's cool.

Yeah.

These small little Pentecostal churches I grew up in, that might not work so well.

Small Pentecostal churches you're talking.

We're loud enough.

Yeah.

Most of those are all wood, and the floors cement are all wood.

So if somebody even drops a songbook in there, it's so noisy, you'll hear it.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's, you know, volume's not a problem in those buildings usually.

Yeah, yeah.

So you mentioned some earlier, so it had me curious anyway, but when you guys get an order, how often do you actually go visit the church that you're building the pews for to kind of get an idea of what you're doing?

Or is it all just what they send you?

You build it or do you ever visit the churches?

Yeah, we go out and meet with them and we bring samples of what we do.

Some.

Some samples and then kind of, you know, wet their appetite a little bit, so to speak, with that.

And they can pick some colors.

And some churches come as far as we had.

We had one church come as far as Pensacola up here and rode about 15 of them in a van, come up here, hung out for a day picking out their stuff.

You know, that's a pretty fun church trip.

Hey, guys, we're getting in there.

We're getting in the church bus.

We're going to Alabama.

Yeah.

And so it's.

We get them started, and then once we meet with them and get a general idea of what they're after and meet the people and we know who we're.

You know, you see that face, that voice you're talking to on the other end, you.

You kind of get connected somewhat, and.

And then we take it from there.

Then we'll meet, talk with them two or three times.

Hey, what color stain do you want?

You want the brownish red?

Okay, I got a couple.

I'm gonna send you.

Pick one of those and see how close we're getting.

And then, same way with everything.

You narrow it down like that, you know, by showing them stuff and letting them pick, and hopefully they don't get in a fight and they finally pick something, you know, so.

Right.

It's usually pretty.

Pretty amicable situations.

God forbid it goes to a committee.

Well, you.

A lot of times you'll have committees.

We have committees.

Come here.

We have a showroom that has a lot of stuff in it.

Actually, right now it doesn't because it's tore all the pieces.

We're redoing it, but we'll have a committee show up and there'll be six up Usually it's.

It's three married couples, and I really try to tell them not to do that.

You know, you really.

You need to have six people.

If you're going to have six people, you need six people that are not maritally connected.

You know what I'm saying?

They usually don't do that like that.

But we've had some pretty eventful discussions with married couples before.

Right.

So, you know, women, you know, it's just us guys talking here now.

So, you know, women are usually always right, you know, so, yeah, you have to learn to deal with.

Indeed.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I'm talking about.

So you have to kind of learn to deal with that.

But I get to do a little refereeing sometimes.

But they usually bring their preacher with them, too.

So I usually try to give him a whistle.

Let him do that.

Right.

So how much y' all do?

Traditional craftsmanship and modern manufacturing.

So, like, how much of a pew by you guys is made by hand these days and how much is machined?

Well, there's.

The entire pew is made by hand, but there are certain things that happen to that pew, like the crosses that are routed in in the ends.

And like the way the end panel is made, you've got a groove cut in it for the seat in the back to go up into to put screws in it to fasten it together.

And of course, all the upholstering stuff is that's all hand done.

We got machines that mash it, but then we got people who pull it around, shoot it and trim it and get it looking smooth, you know, and everything.

Now the, like, the wood back situation, that's all hand stuff there.

We take boards and glue them up edge, glue them and then plane them to a thickness.

And then we sand them down to the thickness, the finish thickness.

And then we'll cut a dado cut in the top edge of it, a rabbit cut, and then a dado cut in the cap.

In the cap that goes across the top edge of the back.

Put all that on with glue and everything.

And so this.

There's, you know, we got machinery that does certain things, but we do a lot of hand work, too.

Machines make you everything.

Chancel area, that's all hand work there.

That's no machinery.

No.

Yeah, that's impressive stuff, too.

Awesome.

So what makes building furniture for a church different than building furniture for a home or, you know, a workplace?

Well, typically your home furniture is mass produced, you know, and, you know, you.

I don't know if the.

To the.

To the normal Naked eye, home furniture looks like it's slick and fine, perfect.

You know, to a furniture builder who actually does it, he can pick a piece of that furniture apart all the pieces, you know, flaws in it.

Because most of those.

The furniture that you buy in a furniture store, most of that is built by computers, you know, unlike what we're doing here, it's all built by hand.

And churches come here and they're.

They go out in a plan, and we're free to take them out there and let them see what's going on, you know, and most churches that.

If they have anybody in the crowd that's a woodworking kind of guy, they're fascinated by the hand zone that's going on out there.

So why.

Why do you guys choose to do so much by hand still?

Like, I feel like most of it probably could be done machine cheaper.

Is there a reason why you.

Well, furniture is not assembly line built.

Every piece of furniture we build, well, I mean, we've got a catalog that.

That you can choose furniture out of.

But what churches will do is they'll.

They'll look in that catalog and they'll say, okay, I like that.

That pulpit right there, but I like the base on that one over there.

But I like the top on that one over there.

And can you leave the cross off?

You know, so there's so much customizing going on that it's better for us to just take the piece from scratch and build exactly what they're after.

Yeah.

A logistical decision.

Hopefully we get it right the first time, you know.

Right.

We take pretty good notes, so we get pretty close, you know?

Yeah.

So did you build the furniture in your house?

Several pieces, yeah.

Several pieces.

We.

My family and I just bought a house on the river over here a few years ago.

And we walk in the house, and my wife.

It's got a humongous.

It's got a big old great room for the family, you know, but it had a great big bar in there that was taking up a whole lot of room, you know.

And so my wife come in there, she says, that bar's got to go.

And I said, well, okay.

She said, I'll just draw up something.

You can build us another bar for this, you know.

So what I done was I took the doors off of that cabinet that was in there, so I didn't have to build the doors.

And I built another bar and fit those doors to the new cabinet and ended up about half the size of what we had.

So it's quite a bit more functional.

And we saved some space, so.

But yeah, it's nice.

I've done it for my entire adult life.

And it's a, it's real.

It's a lot of fun for me.

I love it.

Yep, I get it.

I build computers, so like the farthest end of the spectrum you can possibly get to.

I understand where you're coming from a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So how many people normally work on a pew and like what kind of materials go into a typical pew?

Well, the parts you don't see in a pew, in our pew, because of the warranty and all that, a lot of companies use particle board and that kind of thing.

We, we use no particle board whatsoever on anything when a matter of fact we don't have any particle board on the property.

What you don't see underneath that is pine plywood, 4 ply half inch or 9 or 11 ply 3 quarter inch.

Then we also use birch half inch and birch 3/4 inch.

Now the wood that you actually see can be any species you want.

Typically it's oak for us, red oak.

But we do cherry, we do mahogany, hackberry, you know, you name it.

Birch, maple, pine, anything.

Yeah.

How many people touch like each pew?

Like if I just wanted one pew, how many people would work on my pew?

If you had one pew, if it was a, say, a fully upholstered pew, everybody in the building would touch it for a left ear at some point.

About how many people is that?

If you had a guess, I think, I don't know.

Right now we got about 25 people, maybe something like that.

But we have, because of some machinery that we have bought, we're putting about.

Putting out now about 75% of what I was putting out in, in, in the 90s with 65 people, we're putting out about 75% of that out now with about 25.

So that's pretty cool.

Machinery's made a difference.

Yeah, right, for sure.

But still, even the machinery we have, it still requires quite a bit of hands on stuff.

Yeah, that special thing, you can't get away from that.

Everybody wants something different.

If you got, if you say, if you go out and your buddy buys a couch or a chair somewhere right there and you say, well, I'm going to get me one of them.

Well, you go get it and you tell them, you, I like that cherry.

He's got butt.

I want mine to have.

You know, churches want different stuff, you know.

Yeah, for sure.

So you mentioned that you don't just create new pews, but sometimes you Guys recreate or restore older church pews.

Curious.

Have you ever had to recreate or restore a church pew that's older than you?

Oh, sure, We've done.

We've done one in Galveston about.

Now, this church actually went through.

And it was just a regular storm.

But that was back before they could warn the people the storm was coming.

And so that's the reason so many people died.

It was half the size of Hurricane Katrina.

So.

But everybody knew Hurricane Katrina was coming, you know, so.

And we refinished Fuse, that was in that storm.

And the story goes.

And I actually wrote a history book about it out there.

I read some of it when I was out there when the storm was over.

Some of the pews, they didn't fasten the pews down in the church.

Some of the pews that floated out of the building, out the street, so it was about 100 pews, they were built out of hard maple.

And we brought them all back here, kept them for about a year till they restored, done their building and everything, and then took them back and put them back in and everybody's happy.

Did you fasten them down this time?

Did you fasten them down this time?

Yes, we need to fasten them down.

Okay, good.

If we can't fasten it down, we don't warranty it.

Ah.

If we can fasten it down, then we don't.

We'll give you.

Even if it's your pew, we'll give you somewhat of a warranty if you let us fasten them down.

If it's our pew, if it's an ep, we're gonna fast them down and we're not gonna bring them.

I mean, that's just it.

We're gonna find somebody.

You're gonna get 25 year warranty.

Fair.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a good deal.

Yeah, yeah.

So what is the significance in restoring those older pews?

You mentioned a little bit earlier the cost effectiveness.

But is there other reasons that people ask for restoration?

But you got a lot of sentimental feelings going on about some stuff.

But the thing about it is, you know, when it gets down, I mean, if you're going to Talk, religious talk.

You know, they're spending the Lord's money.

So their attitude is, you know, we need to spend it the best way we can spend it.

Right.

And you, there's nothing wrong with them, they just need a new finish.

And you want to change the fabric from the, the old yellow, gold, green look to a new fresh color.

Right?

Well, I can go get those pews, they're put together with screws so they'll come apart.

I can take them apart, bring them back here, refinish them, put new foam in them, put new fabric on them, put them back together and bring them back to you.

And I can do that for just a little more than half what a new P would cost you.

And you, unless you look really close, you'll never know that they weren't new.

You think this, they're new.

Whenever, matter of fact, we've had churches that we refinished their pews for them and when we brought them back would say, these ain't our pews, are they?

Surely these ain't what you come and got, you know, so they look drastically different when we get done.

Well, yeah, so we've talked about, I think every step of the process, at least a little bit.

But could you describe to us in detail what it's like from start to end?

They call, you say, hey, we need pews and you take it over there and you fasten them down in the sanctuary.

Well, we'll get something over the Internet or they'll call.

And I say, hey, we're building a new building down here and we need somebody to come out, see what we need.

So we'll go out, see what size building they have, we'll come back and do a CAD draw at other floor and everything and we'll come back with a recommendation.

Oh, this is what's going to fit.

We do this, you'll have a two foot aisle on the side, you'll have six foot in the middle and so forth and so on.

So much in the front, so much in the back, this is what will fit comfortably.

And then usually they go with whatever we say.

You know, we don't try to, if they need 20 pews, we don't try to jam 22 in there.

So we get to sell them to more pews.

You know, we, we try to make sure that it's a comfortable situation for everybody.

So then they place their order, we bring it back here and get the fabric ordered and the foam ordered usually takes anywhere from six weeks to eight weeks, something like that.

And then when it's about six weeks time for the pews, before we bring the pews, we put the order out in a plant.

So the guys in one end of the building are alerted about the gluing part, the end panels, the supports.

In the meantime, the guys who build the book racks are alerted that they've got, they're going to have to have 75, three book capacity book racks with cup holes in them.

So they put it on their list.

And then all of a sudden after that happens, then the ebb and flow has started here.

It comes from one end to the other.

And then finally it all makes its way down to the finishing room where we wipe all our stains on by hand, and wipe them off by hand.

And then everything exposed wood is sprayed with a, a sanding vinyl sealer.

Put about a 4 mil coat, which is a pretty thick coat on there, let that dry good.

And then we come back with 320 grit sandpaper, which is just a little rougher than a sheet of notebook paper, and sand it one more time and then we'll come back and put that another 4 mil coat of clear, clear lacquer on top of that, catalyzed lacquer on top of that.

And it's a moisture resistant finish.

It's very durable.

Back in the, in the late 80s and early 90s when we packed a truck, I started using it's ML Campbell finish, started using that stuff in the early 90s.

And before that, when we packed the truck, we had to really pack everything because it was so easy to scratch everything.

You know, when I switched to the ML Campbell finish and that changed all that, all of a sudden I had a finish that was tough.

You couldn't scratch it like you could before.

It was more expensive.

But it was worth it, you know, to get to the church.

And, you know, I've put pews in myself way back there and we get a job put in and then we spend two hours touching everything up, fixing the scratches and the marks that we'd left on the pews.

Well, when I switched to this new finish, all of A sudden, when we got done putting a job in, there was nothing to do.

There was no scratches.

And so it more than pay for itself quickly, you know.

And so we knew that was the right way to go right away.

Yeah.

How.

So how far out are y' all willing to go?

Like if my church over here in Greer, South Carolina needed new view.

What's your number?

I'll call you when we get out here.

We try to stay within 300 miles of here.

It's what we like to do.

We'll go as far west as Texas.

We'll go all the way to the Miami in Florida, we'll go above, up to Pennsylvania in that area.

I don't, I'm not crazy about going to Maine.

And up in, up in where those northern, northern, northern people are up there, they're hard to deal with.

And it's just, you got weather issues, you know.

You know, we try to stay right here within, you know, I said 300 miles.

That's our, that's our real cherry pick area.

Probably truth.

Truth be known, it's really a 700 mile radius is what we're.

We're looking to stay inside of, you know.

Yeah.

And see, that's 12 hours from here, 700 miles.

You know, there was pews at the church I attended when I was a kid in Tallahassee, Florida.

There's, there's a chance.

You built pews that I sat on.

Very well done.

Yeah, yeah, we've done a bunch.

I mean, we, we average somewhere around 200 church transactions a year.

Whether it be pews, furniture, you know, could be, could be anything, you know, and we have had as much as 250 in a year.

Wow.

So tough year.

Yeah, good year.

But, you know, the market's changed a lot.

You know, back in the 90s, you know, they were.

There were 10 companies in the eastern half United States.

And I was fighting for work.

I was fighting all the time for work, you know, discount giving stuff away.

Ran this special one time where I told all my salesmen.

At one time, I had 13 salesmen.

And I told all the salesman, I said, here's the deal, boys.

Between now, it's like in September of the year.

I said, between now and the first year, every church order, every church that buys pews from us, you tell them that we'll give them pulpit, any pulpit in the catalog.

If they buy from us, we'll give them a pulpit.

You know, that is, you wouldn't believe how that.

Busted.

I mean, you talk about busting the thing.

It was it was crazy.

Churches love free stuff, you know.

Yeah, they do.

Me too.

And I just have to think about that just off cuff, you know, and thought I'd run it and see what happened, you know.

And end of the year we stopped that.

I was working to furnish people to death out there, but, but anyway it's, it's, you know, when you're in the manufacturing world and, and in our situation, you know, we don't have a mother company to help us if we don't do our job or we get out of, get in financial trouble.

So when you're in that world, you have to be thinking different than if I get in trouble, I'll just call our mother company up there in Ohio and they'll send us a couple hundred thousand dollars.

We'll be all right, you know.

Well, that's not the way it works when you're all alone.

And now the way the market is turned.

I had all that competition in 90s now we don't have much competition.

We got.

There's just two other, two or three other companies in the east now, man.

Yeah,.

They're trying to catch us, so.

That's right.

Do you miss them?

You miss your other competitors?

Not a bit.

Well, so it's kind of sad.

Happy situation here, you know, Sad that there's not as much you need.

But I'm thankful that my business.

Yeah, I'm thankful my son and my daughter all have to fight for work like, like my wife and me did, you know, A little different world now, but it's all good.

It's all good, you know, it's progressing with the times and that's what we're doing.

So I'm really proud of where we're at for sure.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

So if you had to put it into one or two sentences, what is this work meant to you and how does the work that you do influence the weekly experience of, you know, churches on Sunday church?

Well, I, I can't respect what the other churches personally.

For me it's the fact to be able to carry on a tradition like we've got that was not only something my grandfather done and then now and my wife's grandfather done and now we've carried it on and a lot of satisfaction involved in that.

You know, I've told churches, no telling how many times I've said to churches, you know, I've been so lucky in my business life.

I've never got up on Monday morning dreading to go to work and a lot of people can't say that.

You know, usually I was at.

I was first in here, turning the lights on, ready to go, couldn't wait to get going, you know, and.

And I'm still up here every day, and I ain't doing nothing.

You know what I mean?

Talking over phone, talking to you guys, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like they say, you know, if you like what you do, you never work a day in your life, Right?

That's right.

So what am I gonna do?

I say, man, why don't you just go?

Why don't you just quit?

What am I gonna do?

Go home, sit on the couch?

No, I don't think so.

I mean, yeah, he's gonna go home.

And sit on his pew.

Yeah, well, yeah, I could do that.

Yeah.

A little different.

It's been really good to me, and I guess the biggest thrill for me and my wife as well is the fact that we carried this thing on that started with her grandfather to her father, to us, to me, rather, and then now on to my son, the fourth generation, and him and his wife and his child.

Yeah, that's beautiful.

Strong as ever, pushing right forward.

All good stuff.

You know, it's just.

It's really a blessing to get to watch for sure.

Yeah.

And it's a.

It's been a blessing to hear from you, to learn more about how pews get made.

Do you have anything else for.

For us or our listeners before we wrap this part of the episode up?

Nah, just send me that telephone number.

You guys.

Will do.

We'll get right on it, right?

No, we're real Pentecostal.

We can't.

We can't afford no fancy pew.

Hey, I got on the floor.

If you got a budget, I'll make it work.

Okay.

All right, man.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Okay, so, T.J. now that Mr. Jones interview is finished, I did want to touch on some stuff because, you know, he didn't want to get into any of, like, the spiritual specific kind of stuff, but I wanted to kind of just pick our own brains, both of our brains.

What do you think is the spiritual significance of the seating arrangements and furniture of our churches?

I mentioned in the Factor fantasy thing, to me, how the seats are arranged.

Could say, hey, this person on stage is what's important.

Or it could say, we're a community gathered together.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think the pew as a bench, pew as furniture already does a pretty good job at emphasizing the communal nature of a church, because, you know, there's.

Unless you're on the end.

There's no armrest.

You are sitting there next to your neighbor.

You know, it's pretty.

As far as seating goes, it's pretty communal.

Yeah.

It's like all bench seats, they're called that because they're like benches, which is a pew.

Pew is a bench.

Yeah.

I'm maybe a little controversial here.

Like, I'm kind of both minds here.

I actually do like that our church has chairs instead of pews.

Sorry.

But I like it because for certain services, you know, we're all facing the same direction.

There's people who are doing the worship and whatever, preaching.

And then sometimes our church, our chairs are laid out more in, like, a semicircle.

And there is no one person on stage, but it's like we're facing each other.

We're facing the sacraments in the middle.

And I think that actually could be really significant to remind you the person on stage isn't important.

And a lot of times pews are set up so that there's one person on stage and you're almost in a theater just watching a performance.

But also, like you said, there's no armrest, so you're forced to be shoulder to shoulder with people.

So I think that's a really communal aspect.

And I don't know, you know, like.

Like, I think it just kind of depends on how you're laying everything else out.

I think the chairs are a significant part.

But if there's a bunch of pews and then a really high stage and everybody's looking up at people performing, I have an issue with that.

But if it's lower, your pews are more arranged so that you're communally together, and there's something in the middle, like the sacraments being laid out or a baptism pool, whatever.

I can get more behind that, I think.

So.

I think it just kind of depends on the rest of the layout.

But I definitely think the layout is important because when you go into that worship place, how it's laid out tells you what's supposed to be important to you.

Is it the screens up there?

Is it the music, the person on the stage?

Is it one another?

And then also pews, especially older pews, you'll have stuff like.

Which I am a little bit sad of our church camp moving.

It's good that we're changing stuff up.

But there's parts of the altar where I'm.

I see that spot.

That is a spot where I first received the Holy Spirit.

Like, I remember that.

I remember Kevin Varnedoe telling Me this part of the stage and something he prayed for right there and being able to point to that.

And pews have a little bit of that where you're like certain notch in the wood and you're like, that's from when my grandpa was a kid, you know, or, you know.

So I think there's a lot of history that's beautiful into that.

That you don't get into some of your modern furniture because can't put a notch in a metal chair, you know.

Well, I guess you could, but not quite the same.

I most certainly can.

Most certainly can.

But my church also does chairs.

But my church does chairs because we have like a multi purpose building.

Our floor is a basketball court.

Which is cool.

Yeah.

Like there are basketball goals hanging in our sanctuary because it's a gym.

Yeah.

Which makes it more functional.

So it's not just some.

A room you use once a week.

You can do more.

Do more with it.

Which.

Yeah.

We use our sanctuary for everything.

God likes wisdom, you know.

Yeah.

But it is, I think mostly in the direction and angle of seating, which is why I also.

Yeah.

Not necessarily prefer chairs.

Hey.

I just.

The direction of seating is probably the most spiritually significant.

Like the angle.

Am I pointing at the pasture?

That kind of thing.

My pastor moves a lot, so it's not even super relevant.

But being able to change that when needed, I think is a nice piece of versatility.

That's why I personally wouldn't want to anchor my pews into the floor.

Yeah.

So I wouldn't be able to.

I wouldn't be able to go to the Rainsville View Company.

Yeah, yeah, I was thinking that too.

Like it's nice to be able to move your chair sometimes.

Just different, you know, if it's a wedding, I understand those people being on the stage and the pews all facing that direction.

It's a worship service facing each other.

I feel like it makes a little bit more sense.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting though because it's just little things.

I like that a lot too because that's part of why I started into more liturgical church.

I like the creeds because it unites me to all these people in the church from hundreds of years before.

So I think having older furniture also could do something like that.

Having the story of what happened with the Storm in Texas.

Like some of that.

I feel like it does add to the worship.

Just having that still part of the building kind of, you know, but, yeah, yeah, I think.

I think a lot.

The answer is there's a lot.

A lot of significance spiritually.

The.

The seating arrangement and furniture, even if maybe not everybody would think of it immediately, you know.

So, dj, one thing we do always like to do before wrapping up.

I'm not sure if you know about this, but we like to ask for a single tangible action to help better engender church unity.

So I'm going to ask you, since our guest is gone for now, what is one practical action you think our listeners could stop and do right now that would help better engender unity in the church?

Well, I don't think you could do.

It right now, probably.

And if you could do it right now, you should feel a little bit bad because you should be listening to your pastor.

Because I say get in that pew and scoot all the way down next to the next person in that pew.

Unless it's me, then.

Don't do that, please.

Yeah.

Sorry, Josh.

It's a community.

You don't have to touch them.

But that's the point of a pew.

You're supposed to be able to get in there, slide all the way down.

Makes it nice and easy.

And what do you think would change in the world if everybody went to church and got really uncomfortably close?

I think the church.

If the church felt closer, then it would show.

No, there's a lot of times you go to church and there's just.

It's full of people that you don't know.

And I'm not saying you have to sit next to a stranger, but if everyone in that sanctuary is sitting next to each other, a stranger's probably going to come in and sit pretty close.

I feel like I could sit pretty close with, like, you on one side and my wife on the other side, and I think I'd be fine.

In that scenario, you guys have to sit next to the strangers.

Not.

I'm not doing it.

Yeah.

Which will still help.

Yeah, Yeah.

I mean, I'm still.

I'll talk to him.

I just, you know, I'm weird.

I'm weird about personal space.

Yeah.

But I do think.

Yeah.

Well, also, it's hard to love people that you're not willing to be close to or engage with.

And that's something I struggle with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's what I think.

That's good.

It's a good challenge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So before we Wrap up.

We just like to ask everyone to share a moment where they saw God recently.

Whether it's a blessing, a challenge, mode of worship, curse, whatever.

I always make you go first.

Josh.

So do you have a God moment for us this week?

Yeah.

Trying to think if I want to do with this.

I am.

I'm sorry.

I apologize in advance.

Kingdom Hearts 4 is my God moment.

Yeah.

The one thing I was hoping they would do in Kingdom Hearts 4 is the only thing they really announced last weekend.

So I was kind of cool.

But really the reason, it was significant to me.

For those who don't know, it's a video game.

It's just a video game.

I had a really hard weekend.

We've had a kind of a rough year with the packs of my mother in law and just this weekend having something I could hold on to of all these fun announcements and like, yeah, it's something silly, but it gave me a little bit of joy when I needed it.

And on top of that, seeing that they are actually addressing questions of death.

I don't know.

For some reason a franchise that means that much to me, addressing death feels significant, like something I needed.

So.

Yeah.

I mean, it's lame, but that's gonna be my God moment.

Yeah.

Is the one thing you want in Kingdom Hearts for Coco?

Oh, yeah.

I was like, that's the one world I wanted them to announce.

That's the only one they announced.

So.

Yeah.

Sweet.

Yeah.

Also you can.

For the next couple of days, you can get every Kingdom Hearts game on steam for like 30 bucks.

I already have them is the only issue.

Yeah.

But that is really cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like all of them.

Dream Drop distance, chain of memories, 1.8, 2.8.

I might still look in case there's something.

But yeah.

Anyway, what about you?

What's your goal?

I finally got the chance to celebrate my promotion with my family the other night.

Nice.

Yeah, it was cool.

Celebrate or dread?

Celebrate.

Oh, just make.

I like to work personally.

Yeah.

Well, that's nice for.

For you.

Yeah.

I welcome most challenges.

Mm.

It's a test from God.

I don't want this test.

I won't take it back.

But it was fun.

I haven't gotten to see any of them since I got promoted, so it was pretty cool.

That's great.

Yeah.

And that is nice.

It's nice to be supported.

Yeah.

It's like my promotion caused me to miss my mom and my dad's birthday.

Great.

Yeah.

I haven't missed any birthdays yet, but that's because the first family Birthday since then isn't for another couple of weeks,.

So you have time to.

Yeah, I'll miss that one.

Probably just hire more people.

Anybody listening who wants to work?

Message us directly for details.

Yeah, I. I'm not hiring you if I don't like you.

So you know who he's talking to.

If you do, don't apply.

If you heard that, you're like, oh, he's talking about me.

Don't apply.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Good stuff, though, I guess.

Kind of.

It was good stuff until I turned it into not good stuff.

I feel bad.

Yeah, my bad.

Please share this with a friend.

With an enemy.

Share with a cousin.

Especially your cousins.

Especially your cousins.

Means a lot to us.

You know, we're trying to build that community.

We're trying to be that community.

I don't know about you, but at my church, my cousins are the community.

Yeah.

Also if I could just call all of our, you know, followers cousin, because most of them are cousins with each other.

You know, I would just like that they got some joy out of that.

Yeah, we need to arrange a marriage so that our cousins will be cousins.

Yeah, yeah, figure that one out.

Go to our website, purchase one of our T shirts to promote our show.

It helps us raise money for podcasting needs and it lets others know about the importance of our mission to educate and unite the modern church.

I am a big fan of the shirt I never remember the name of, so I'm going to skip it.

Diverse Church.

Oh yeah, that too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool stuff on there.

It's one I'm wearing right now.

I do enjoy that talk about the unity of the Trinity and of the church and how they're connected.

So it's good stuff.

Theological stuff and the design school, cuz Celtic stuff just generally looks cool.

Consider checking out some of the other shows on Podcast Network.

You know, TJ and I are both on systematic ecology.

We both love Pastor Will Rose.

So check out the homily with Pastor Chill Will from Chapel Hill.

And check out your Matter Matters where they do some faith and science stuff.

About to get a new season coming up with that.

So cool stuff.

Cool.

I don't know that, but we do.

Hope you enjoyed.

Coming up, we'll be talking with Josh Gilbert and Josh Patterson.

Three of them.

That's right, three Joshes.

The Josh.

The Josh.

I return about the not the wise Josh, but we're talking about the behinds of season of making a Christian podcast.

What isn't that exciting?

And after that, we talking with Jonathan Foster about the publishing process of Christian books.

Finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan is going to be on the show and we're going to talk with him about the behind the scenes of the publishing process of Christian books.

Oh, sorry.

To tell him about the makings of Francis Chan.

Yeah, we're going to talk with Francis Chan.

How did you come to the makings of Francis Chan?

Probably if someone invites him, if his dad's around.

There's a lot of ifs.

All of us to that one.

Yeah, you guys can do it.

We believe in you listeners.

We're not gonna do it.

I do.

Yeah, you gotta have to.