A Pipe Organ for Lamb of God Lutheran Church
06/30/18
Lamb of God Lutheran Church is in the Lake City area of northern
Seattle, and it is the product of the combining of three different
Lutheran Churches (Our Savior Lutheran, Mt. Olive Lutheran, Zion
Lutheran). They selected
the site of Our Savior Lutheran for the combined congregation, and the
name Lamb of God Lutheran was adopted.
Early in 2015, the Pipe Organ Foundation was contacted by Lamb of God
Lutheran about the possibility of an installation of a pipe organ in
what was to be a completely renovated sanctuary.
Of particular focus at that time was a 1949 four rank Moller pipe
organ which was playing at Zion Lutheran in the Green Lake
area of Seattle. The
Foundation agreed to help Lamb of God Lutheran remove and store that
organ with the plan of making it part of the new instrument to be
installed at Lamb of God.
To help achieve that objective, the Foundation provided materials,
manpower, and expertise, and the organ was removed and placed in storage
on October 17, 2015.
After the storage of the organ from Zion, the church then had to deal
with a series of property consolidation and planning issues.
After that were visits to the Foundation by the church, seeing
the Foundation’s shop, and hearing its instruments.
Pastor Brad Malone, Director of Music Janelle Beal, organist
Roselyn Newton, and Chair of the Church Council Rick Ridgeway were all
involved in discussions, and Carl Dodrill, President of the Foundation,
also came to services at the church to be sure that the church’s needs
were thoroughly understood.
A Letter of Agreement between the church and the Foundation was signed
on October 7, 2017.
Early in 2018, work on the organ for Lamb of God Lutheran began, and at
the start, the focus has been on the instrument placed at the front of
the church. As part of the
renovation of the sanctuary, the church built out a wall at the front of
the church to hold the Great, Swell, and Pedal divisions of the organ.
As the pictures show, there are two holes or windows for the
sound to egress from the pipe chambers to the sanctuary.
The Great/Pedal chamber is on the left as you face the front and
the Swell chamber on the right.
Further, façade pipes were planned which represent the bottom
octaves of the Great 8’ Open Diapason rank and the Pedal 8’ Octave rank.
The pictures show many of the necessary tasks being undertaken by
the volunteers who were closely supervised during the project.
The Great division has four ranks (8’ Open Diapason, 8’ Rohrflute, 4’
Octave, 2’ Fifteenth), the Swell division has seven ranks (8’ Gedeckt,
8’ Salicional, 8’ Voix Celeste, 4’ Principal, 4’ Harmonic Flute, 8’
Trumpet, 8’ Clarinet), and the Pedal division has two independent ranks
(16’ Bourdon, 8’ Octave).
An Antiphonal division will be at the back and is expected to have four
ranks.
The organ is operated by an Artisan system, and a console with an
Artisan system in it was donated to the Foundation by Mark Andersen.
This donation was of great value not only for value of the
Artisan system, but also because it moved the project along and saved
several hundred hours of volunteer effort.
Tom Blackwell also donated a number of Artisan electronic
components to the project, and his donation along with Mark’s did a
great deal to make this project affordable to the church.
Beginning on January 11, 2018, a series of 21 work days for the
Foundation were undertaken on Thursdays, and these workdays were
attended by 14 volunteers who contributed approximately 1,350 hours of
time by the end of May to bring the organ to the point that it could be
installed. On May 29, the
installation began and it plus the resolution of problems, tonal
finishing, etc. has continued until the present time when it is nearly
done. Once completed, the
Antiphonal organ will be built and installed.