July 10, 2023 - Good Morning! It's Monday, July 10.
Yesterday, at First Baptist Center, we featured our pipe organ in the worship service. It had been silent for a year. Our beloved organist is no longer physically able to join us. We miss her. And we've missed the organ.
The Old Testament (at least in the King James Version) mentions organs several times. But, at that time in history, the instrument, as we know it today, did not exist. The reference is most probably to a flute. The prototype for the modern organ appeared in the 700's, the pipes fed by human-powered bellows. By the 1700's, the instrument looked, and sounded, pretty much as it does now, and was the single most complex machine of its time.
The largest organ in the world is in, of all places, Atlantic City, New Jersey. It has over 33,000 pipes. The largest is 64 feet long, the smallest barely an inch. This monster hasn't been fully operational since the 1940's. A 16-million-dollar renovation project is currently underway, a reminder that an organ is expensive to build and expensive to maintain.
Our church is blessed to have our pipe organ. I hope you've been blessed to have the opportunity to hear one. It is a unique experience. The sound, literally, gets inside of you. It has the power to inspire. And, in a place of praise, in a cathedral of worship, it has the power to lift our spirits . . . to God.
Psalm 150 - "Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs . . . Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!"
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
