Music

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Colossians 3:16

At St. John’s, we encourage you to worship God by joining us in singing hymns and psalms, no matter your musical ability.

The main instruments we use for worship are the organ and voice. We use the organ as a musical background to prepare our hearts and minds for worship, plus we use it to lead congregational singing.

We do not use a praise band here because that does not match our style of worship.

Our musical past: The Wangerin Organ

St John’s procured a 1924 Wangerin pipe organ opus 421 from the Crystal Theater in Burlington circa 1928. Our church built an organ loft to house the organ.

The organ had two manuals or keyboards and four sets of pipes; ranks included A Stopped flute 16′ – 2′, diapason 8′ – 4′, Viol d’ Orchestra, 8′ – 4′, and an 8′ Vox Humana, plus there was a metal bar harp. Thus organ served the church well for many years but was limiting.

The early 2000s brought on talks of expanding the organ with vintage pipework. The pocess took too long for some organ committee members, and the organ committee decided to go in a different direction.

That leads us to get out current Allen Organ.

Our current organ

In 2004 St John’s purchased a new Allen AP-40 to add to the Wangerin. Part of that process did not happen because of a misunderstanding.

The Allen on its own is more than enough to handle the job, but the Wangerin never got added to the organ.

Our Allen Organ adds a lot to our worship services because of the organ voices offered by this beautiful instrument. The organ provides diverse tonal sounds, from quiet and lush sounds to a loud fanfare style trumpet.

Our Allen allows St John the Divine to enjoy more styles of music in worship than ever before.

We offer different types, from a traditional hymn, a contemplative elevation with a clarinet and flute, to loud and joyful melodies during the festive season.

Our current organist

Kevin P. Monteith is our current organist, and he has been with us since 1995.

The Allen’s stop list

Our Piano

Besides the organ, we also have a piano that the Stevenson family donated in 2000. We used the piano for many years to lead our 10 am service.

We no longer use the piano for leading church services.