Small church builds big sanctuary to house its pipe organ_82304

Posted: 8/20/04

Small church builds big sanctuary to house its pipe organ

By Jo Gray

Special to the Baptist Standard

FORESTBURG–When First Baptist Church of Forestburg decided to expand its building, members weren't just anticipating growth when they constructed a three-story, 6,700-square-foot sanctuary.

A smaller worship center with a lower ceiling would have been cheaper to build and less expensive to heat and cool. But it would not have housed the 700-pipe Wicks organ that John David Dill of Denton donated to the church.

Dill gave the pipe organ–built of parts he gathered himself–in memory of his grandfather, Lewis Eldridge, a former deacon at the church.

The congregation began an organ fund to help with installation and maintenance costs.

Dill's grandmother, Ruth Eldridge, provided funds for the electric relay, a necessary part of updating the instrument. Dill's godmother, the late Berrien Tinsley, purchased the swell shades.

Prior to the pipe organ being installed in the new structure, some adjustments had to be made to the original plans to improve acoustics, such a installing a wooden floor on the raised platform that houses the organ and building a solid ceiling instead of exposed beams.

“This is a great building,” Dill said. “There is no need for a microphone. The sound carries throughout the building.”

While the construction was going on, members of the Texas Baptist Men Builders set up camp in Forestburg. For two weeks, volunteers worked on the large structure. Once the back wall was nailed into place, they sawed a large rectangular opening in it to allow for installation of the organ's many various-sized pipes.

Dill's father and uncle helped him assemble the organ's parts, collected from Lutheran, Methodist and Baptist churches. Some were salvaged from a church fire.

Dill, a sales representative for Wicks Organ Company, sells, installs and services the musical instruments.

“Some people will think this (organ) is a Frankenstein. It isn't,” he said. “All the components came from the mid-1930s to mid-1940s. They were all built by the same company during the same period, so they balance. It blends very well.”

Once the parts were gathered, Dill and his father assembled the organ in his uncle's garage. The organ then was dismantled and reassembled on site in three days last April.

Clarice Merret of Bowie, a retired elementary teacher, serves as organist of the Forestburg church, but she willingly turns the position over to Dill when he is available.

Dill is organist for First Baptist Church of Denton. He earned bachelor of music education and bachelor of organ performance degrees from Baylor University and a master of organ performance degree from the University of North Texas.

He laments the declining number of church organists.

“Organ players come from piano players,” Dill said. “We have so few people learning piano today. Only 250 to 300 are studying organ at the collegiate level nationwide.”

Dill blames the lack of interest in organ music on the trend toward more contemporary music in churches.

But at Forestburg, as in other small community churches, the organ still is the backbone of the musical service.

And while the church built its sanctuary to accommodate the organ, it also is filling with new members.

Pastor Stewart Holloway, who came to the church a little more than a year ago, noted the church averages 90 to 100 people attending worship services on Sunday morning, and the congregation has added 20 new members since the construction of the new sanctuary.