I'm one of the worst when it comes to hand-wringing over the alarming trend away from traditional, liturgical, hymn-based, and otherwise time-proven worship, as more and more rock-and-roll churches seem to be springing up everywhere and more and more mainline "traditional" churches seem to be struggling if not closing. It's hard to be optimistic about the future of the organ and choir in church when so many signs are pointing toward their demise and the growing "normalization" of anything-goes, loosey-goosey, feet-stomping, hand-raising, holes-in-the-bluejeans worship.
But in the past week I've encountered not one but two congregations that are not only fully committed to genuine "traditional" worship (and not just in the sense of "singing the old songs that Grandma loved"), where liturgy and form are honored, but which are prospering and growing, bursting at the seams.
The first one I ran into is an RCC in a neighboring city. It's a town I've been in many times, but I wasn't even aware that they had an RC church. But I got a call from the lady who's been hired to play the organ, she came to the shop and looked around, then I went to the church and visited with some of the members. This congregation has recently purchased a church facility from a defunct fundamentalist church of some kind and are busily converting it into a magnificent Catholic church. There was an old Allen T-12A in the building, but they are probably going to buy a nice digital organ from us. They are looking to get a pipe organ at some point, but a good full-size digital will tide them over. And get this, not only is this congregation fully liturgical, they do it in LATIN. And they are bursting at the seams, making plans to enlarge the facility ASAP.
The second is a burgeoning Lutheran congregation in a fairly remote community. They have a smallish Allen that we were called out to service. When I inquired about the nature of the church, they proudly told me that they have only their traditional service, no contemporary service at all, and that they are doing very well.
There are others out there too in my area, though it's still much more common to run into an organist singing the blues because he/she doesn't know how much longer the traditional service will continue, as everybody under the age of 80 is now going to the contemporary service.
But I'll take any encouraging sign I can get!
But in the past week I've encountered not one but two congregations that are not only fully committed to genuine "traditional" worship (and not just in the sense of "singing the old songs that Grandma loved"), where liturgy and form are honored, but which are prospering and growing, bursting at the seams.
The first one I ran into is an RCC in a neighboring city. It's a town I've been in many times, but I wasn't even aware that they had an RC church. But I got a call from the lady who's been hired to play the organ, she came to the shop and looked around, then I went to the church and visited with some of the members. This congregation has recently purchased a church facility from a defunct fundamentalist church of some kind and are busily converting it into a magnificent Catholic church. There was an old Allen T-12A in the building, but they are probably going to buy a nice digital organ from us. They are looking to get a pipe organ at some point, but a good full-size digital will tide them over. And get this, not only is this congregation fully liturgical, they do it in LATIN. And they are bursting at the seams, making plans to enlarge the facility ASAP.
The second is a burgeoning Lutheran congregation in a fairly remote community. They have a smallish Allen that we were called out to service. When I inquired about the nature of the church, they proudly told me that they have only their traditional service, no contemporary service at all, and that they are doing very well.
There are others out there too in my area, though it's still much more common to run into an organist singing the blues because he/she doesn't know how much longer the traditional service will continue, as everybody under the age of 80 is now going to the contemporary service.
But I'll take any encouraging sign I can get!
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