Music at St John’s & Our Organ

We feel that music is an integral part of the church experience.

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

How do we provide music at St John’s?

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 and leading congregational singing.

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

Our musical past: The 1924 Wangerin Organ

St John’s procured a 1924 Wangerin pipe organ opus 421 from the Crystal Theater in Burlington circa 1928. To accommodate the organ, the church built the organ loft.

The organ had two manuals, keyboards, and four sets of pipes or ranks.

The organ ranks included:

• Stopped flute 16′ – 2′
• Diapason 8′ – 4′
• Viol d’ Orchestra, 8′ – 4′
• Vox Humana 8′
• A metal bar harp.

The organ was unified and had around 21 stop keys. Because of the unification, there were no couplers. The organ was set up like a theatre organ; the great or solo manual was on top where a typical swell division goes, and the lower manual was the accompaniment division.

The significant difference between the two keyboards was the solo had a 16′ flute and a 2 2/3′ that the accompaniment did not.

The Wangerin organ served the church well for many years but was limiting. So, in the early 2000s, the church talked of expanding the organ with vintage pipework. The process 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 the current Allen Organ.

Our current organ

In 2004 St John’s purchased a new Allen AP-40 to add to the Wangerin. Sadly, that part of that process did not happen because of a misunderstanding. The Allen alone is more than enough to handle the job, but sadly the Wangerin never got added to the organ.

Our Allen Organ adds a lot of music 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 and with more support!

We offer different types of music, 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 has provided us with music since 1995.

The 2004 AP-40 Allen’s stop list

Other musical instruments: Our Piano

Besides the organ, we also have a piano donated to the church by the Stevenson family in 2000. We used the piano for many years to lead our 10 am service, but now the piano plays a secondary role.