Organisation

What's the most expensive piece of technology in your church building?

In modern churches it may be a sound system or a projector - but is much more likely to be a central heating system.

However, if you have a 'traditional' church building It will probably be the pipe organ. They don't come cheap, and require constant maintenance from specialists. Other than the church roof, which is generally considered important, the "organ fund" provides perhaps the most common of financial pressures.

So why have churches traditionally invested so heavily in pipe organs?

There must have been some early resistance, given that the pipes were the most pagan of instruments, as played by Pan.

There was a time when church worship was led by mediaeval music groups. But with the invention of the organ (the most complex man-made object in existence at the time), I assume there was a spate of what I've previously referred to as "cathedral theology". The idea that if the pipe organ is the best musical instrument ever, that's the one we need in churches. Especially if the church down the road had one.

Alternatively, for some clergy, the organ represents an attempt to get the least number of people possible involved in leading the worship!


I have 4 weeks of sabbatical left now. Seems like it's coming to an end. And yet 4 weeks is still twice as long as any holiday I've taken. Ever. As far as I can think.
Still very odd to wake up with absolutely no plan for the day.
Time to take stock of what I have and haven't done.
One thing I have done is to teach myself a dozen or so worship songs, on the keyboard - half an hour a day well spent. The timing may be entirely coincidental, but I do apologise to our regular organist, who broke his arm yesterday, and wish him a speedy recovery!

I have a 2nd hand keyboard that a friend bought for my birthday, many years ago. I have an old 2nd hand Mac Mini computer next to it, and I spent £35 last week on a MIDI interface to connect them. Playing it all through an old music centre, I can now fill the room with the sound of a cathedral organ, or a symphony orchestra, or any other sample I can get into GarageBand. For a couple of hundred pounds in total.
It doesn't really sound like a proper church pipe organ though. But put through a decent church sound system, it would be close. Almost anyone could tell the difference. If you told them to listen for it.
But how much difference in audio quality is there between a digital system costing hundreds and a 'proper' organ costing tens or hundreds of thousands?
Can we really justify such a huge discrepancy between quality and cost?

When technology has become traditional, it's surprising how much money people are willing to throw at it!


Exodus 15:20-21 (ESV)
The prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took her tambourine, and all the women followed her, playing tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang for them: "Sing to the LORD, because he has won a glorious victory; he has thrown the horses and their riders into the sea."

Location:Shed