But then one can never sing "Rock of Ages" too many times, right?
Wrong. Now O Gladsome Light, or the Magnificat, or Nunc Dimitis, or Benedicite Omni Opera, or Te Deum Laudamus, or the Trisagion, or the Sanctus, or the Benedictus, or the Psalms, or the “O Antiphons” of Advent (which miraculously work as well in English as in Latin), or the Christological hymn “Ho Monogenes” or “Only begotten son and word of God,” or the metrical homiles of Ephrem the Syrian or Jacob of Sarugh, those have staying power. The chorales are good for Congregational singing, but most of the best ones were written by Charles Wesley, and are good mainly because John Wesley doctrinally edited them (Charles also snuck out a large number of hymns which you will not find in most Methodist hymnals which are doctrinally dubious).
Although, I will say with confidence you can sing Rock of Ages infinitely more times than “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree,” which drives me crazy, but I suspect the Ophite sect of the 2nd century would love it. But ultimately, while I love chorales for congregational singing, I honestly prefer to cultivate a choir and a precentor and succentor (protocantor and deuterocantor) who can handle greater musical complexity. If we do two congregational hymns and have the choir do the rest, I am content. I suppose this makes me less than the ideal Congregationalist; I would joke I am a Congregation-silence-thyself-and-listen-to-this-antiphon-ist. And even in my old job, I tended to intone the Gospel and as much of the service as I could get away with. I memorized the eight basic modes of Anglican plainsong/Gregorian, Kievan, Russian “Greek” chant, West Syriac chant (which is really easy), and also the two tones of Coptic Tasbeha, which is even easier, and
@dzheremi can attest to its beauty. I can also chant from memory some Ambrosian Rite melodies, but unless you live in Milan and speak Italian, your ability to pick up Ambrosian eight mode chant is compromised. By the way if this sounds interesting, and it might not; I have to struggle to avoid boring my people to death with long impromptu digressions in my sermons into ecclesiastical history, comparative liturgics, and comparative church music, there is a brilliant thread on this in Traditional Theology.
But yes, I do like, nay, I love, your approach to the traditional service.
Because it happens to be my approach. The only difference between us is I flat out can’t do a service with a praiseband. Due to the rarefied aesthetics in much of the UCC this did not become a problem. And the beauty of a mission plant is that if it is successful and I remain here, and transfer to the CCCC or some other denomination, since this is not a UCC mission, I can positively keep it that way. Unless my congregation starts to hate me for it and pressures the Board of Governance** to fire me.
Shucks, if we’d had you I probably wouldn’t have left that parish. But if you have an organ, or even if you get a Hammond organ (which is cheap now; you can buy a $2000 keyboard with an integrated circuit that replicates precisely the electronic wavelenghs generated by the Tone Wheel in a Hammond Organ, and contains all the stops, and hook up extra keyboards to it, and pedals, and any speakers you like), please use that. But at all costs, avoid “Hybrid organs”, which feature a case consisting of a set of large beautiful pipes, but only use these a fraction of the time; they have a massive speaker/subwoofer array concealed within the pipework, instead of more pipes, and are basically giant synthesizers that can optionally vent an organ bellows under certain limited conditions.
They are also unreliable. I was at a concert by my friend Christoph Bull,* a “Bach walk” taking place at a Presbyterian and Roman Catholic church a few blocks apart which both had hybrid organs, sponsored by the manufacturer; the Presbyterians’ organ behaved alright, but the organ at the Roman Catholic church jammed on a note while Christoph was playing a Bach fugue, and kept playing this one note to his chagrin; the manufacturer’s rep jumped on the console to try to troubleshoot it, and if memory serves they had to pull and reset the breaker. This process took ten minutes. This was hilarious in a concert due to Christoph’s keen sense of edgy German ironic humor, but, in a worship service, you would not want that.
So if you have a member of your congregation repose to be with the Lord, and bequeath the church with funds for a pipe organ, for the sake of their memory and your parish, do not but a hybrid! You’re seriously better off with a Hammond organ (especially one integrated into a compact keyboard with an IC; it might not have a pretty wooden console, but, since the integrated circuit produces exactly the same waveforms the Tone Wheel produces if a Hammond is functioning correctly, and it it is not, this is painfully obvious, it is to be preferred, because it has no moving parts, whereas the Tone Wheels on original electro-mechanical Hammond organs can jam, the bearings can degrade, the connections can become frayed, and other Bad Things can happen).
Doing my asterisks in reverse this time:***
*** Rest assured, my sermons do not have footnotes, despite the overpowering temptation to include them. “Now, if you recall what I said five minutes and thirty seconds ago, this was actually an allusion to the Roman Emperor Theodosius II and not Theodosius I.”
** Different Congregational churches have different methods of oversight, including Presbyterian style elders, a Consistory, a Vestry, and so on, but these are as a rule democratically elected by the people. This is actually good, if you teach your people well and involve them in the traditions of your parish; I hypothetically prefer an Episcopal Polity like that of the UMC, the ELCA, the Episcopal Church and other Anglican churches, and of course the Eastern churches I like so much. We need to find an EO priest to join this thread, by the way, because when it comes to sermons, they are the masters of brevity and doctrinal relevance. The thing is, Orthodox Christians, except in the Coptic church, often don’t care that much about the sermon, except at the Paschal Divine Liturgy on Easter at midnight, and in that case the sermon is standardized; it was written by St. John Chrysostom about 1,612 years ago, give or take fifteen years.
*Christoph Bull is the organist at First Congregational in Los Angeles, which joined the UCC in 2017, which surprised me, because having been friends with their recently retired senior minister for a while, I was certain they were UCC. First Congregational boasts the largest church organ in the world, a spectacular array of pipes, well maintained, and Dr. Bull is one of the best organists I know, along with Dr. David Rothe, Mr. David Nunes, Dr. Jurgen Wolfe (not to be confused with Jurgen Wolff the actor).
, formerly of the Nicolholaskirche in Leipzig, not to be confused with the more famous, but less pretty, Thomaskirche; the organ at Nicholaskirche is probably my favorite of any church, and I used to have a recording of it, next to the brand new (well, vintage 2001-2002) Bachorgel at Thomaskirche. But the organ at Nicholaskirche absolutely trounces the 19th century Sauer Organ at the Thomaskirche. It’s also slightly older I believe, but like all organs, in most cases, you find that the consoles and hand operated bellows have been replaced more than once, indeed, hand operated bellows are now something of a rarity because we have electric motors to pressurize the bellows at the flip of a switch. Dr. Rothe prefers mechanical bellows, but likens it to sailing a ship; you have to coordinate your timing with the prevailing wind, in this case generated by your colleague working the pump levers.
Here is a poor quality video which nonetheless hints at the majesty of the Nicholaskirche organ. I used to have a recording on CD, but I lost it in the pre-iTunes era.