WHat church are you going to assume duties at? I know you have been at your old church for a long time. Take care and Best of Luck..btw Better organ to play too I hope.
I had been at Dove of Peace for 34 years ... I had been looking for a different church for a couple years, but those that became available had Hammond organs <eeuchhh> or were 100% electronic keyboard and the 'happy clappy' type of church services. I do not do 'happy clappy' services.
A position became available at
Tanque Verde Lutheran also an ELCA congregation in early July. A lesser organ in that it is electronic and not pipe, but it has 49 individual stops instead of 23, scads of pistons over 6 memories instead of 4 generals (one of which had to be used for the purpose of a General Cancel). A nice sounding instrument manufactured by AOB, a company that existed from 1977 to 1992 in Washington state. This one was built in 1989 and is in excellent condition and will be an instrument that I will love to play for a long time.
Salary wise I came out even ... and I'm happy about that. Usually when an organist changes churches here they start out at the bottom of the scale for that particular church and work their way up. It's a larger congregation, almost 4 times the size of the one I am leaving and they have 3 weekend services, one being on Sat afternoons with piano which I will also be doing. It's mostly a Gospel hymn oriented service format, which I love to do.
The choir numbers between 35 and 50 ... where I am coming from has a choir of 8 if they all show up which doesn't happen all too often.
The best thing is that it's lots lots closer ... only 2.5 miles one way instead of 17 miles one way. Takes me less than 5 minutes to drive from my house to the church, and that will be a huge savings in gasoline and mileage.
I start at the new church Sept 4th ... my last Sunday at Dove is Aug 21st, and I have one weekend to attend at the new place and get all the service formats down in order to play the following weekend. I've done this before, often without the comfort of having a listening session.
Lars