Abstract

This study assessed seat and pulpit furniture preference in churches within three selected Wards in Otukpo, Otukpo Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State. Google Form structured questionnaire was administered in the three purposely selected Wards based on population disparity. Simple Random Sampling Technique was used to administer questionnaire to 260 respondents in both Protestant and Orthodox churches as: 140 respondents in Otukpo Town Central and 60 in each of Otukpo Town East and Otukpo Town West respectively. Data on characteristics of respondents; type of churches; seats and pulpit used in churches; period and time churches were founded; average membership of churches; change of seats; comfort of seats used; reasons for change of seats were assessed and analysed using descriptive statistics. Result showed that 59.62% of respondents were males and 40.38% were females. Most of the churches sampled (90.38%) were Protestant of which 41.6% were founded in the early 2000s while 35.59% came into existence recently. Most churches (77.69%) had average population ranging from 1-300 while few churches had 22.31% membership greater than 400. The result also revealed that 92.7% of seats used in the churches were plastic. Many (67.31%) of the churches had never changed seats while 32.6% changed their seats. Besides, 92% of churches who ever changed seats moved from benches to plastics and 94.23% desired to change seat. Most respondents (98.4%) were both comfortable and very comfortable with their currents seats. The result further showed that in the 99.62% of churches that used pulpits, 86.6% of them used glass pulpits. The reason for change of seats and pulpits were attributed to comfort/standard (75%), modernization/advancement (66.5%) and aesthetic/beauty purposes. It was concluded that there might be a rise in demand of wooden seats and pulpits in the nearest future because of cost incurred in replacement of broken plastics and glasses.