Maybe you saw the recent article about dropping church membership: “U.S. Church Membership Down Sharply in Past Two Decades.” The study revealed that half of Americans are church members, down from 70% in 1999. Most of the decline is attributable to increase in percentage with no religion and membership has fallen nine points among those who are religious.

In fact, U.S. church membership has fallen below 50% for the first time, according to a Gallup poll, continuing a decades-long decline in membership driven by growing numbers of Americans who express no religious affiliation.  

I’m afraid the pandemic has contributed to this trend — for if people cannot gather in groups more than ten, why should anyone bother even going into a church? Many worship services have gone virtual or livestreamed which may not have the same level of engagement as going to church in person. What I mean is, if you are attending a service in person and listening to the organ prelude, you may be able to whisper something to the person next to you, but you’re certainly not going to stand up and get something to eat from the refrigerator! Or, you can have a conversation in a normal voice with someone else in the room while watching a livestream or pre-recorded video. After all, you could always play the recording again in case there was anything you missed?

The decline has wide-ranging consequences for us who are organists, for most of whom their only steady employment is by churches. Ronald Swedlund on the American Guild of Organists Facebook page, wrote: “If the organ doesn’t find an important role in secular society, the instrument, along with employment for those who play it, will quickly die.”

Please, our profession was already dying, with changing trends in worship music, declining attendance in churches, cuts to arts organizations and lack of musical education in schools!

Edwin Woodruff Tait responded: “I think that there will always be cathedrals with a need for good organists, for instance (at least for the foreseeable future). There may be a lot less demand in smaller communities and a lot less demand for people like myself who are not highly skilled organists. But at the moment if anything the demand in my area outpaces the supply–which is how people like me (without a lot of training) become organists in the first place. I’m very happy that I did, and if I could live my life over again I’d choose to focus on organ from a much earlier age and get more training. I just don’t see a situation in which the organ is likely to “die” or in which there will be no employment for the relatively tiny number of people who go into organ as a full-time profession.”

However, the discussion made me think about my own career path as an organist. Not too long ago, I was telling someone how grateful I was to have been an organist because even though I “retired,” I was still able to pick up musical gigs to bring in some income, few as they may be since the pandemic began.

And I’m actually looking forward to in-person worship services (fingers crossed!) because it’s actually easier to play when you know you have an audience! Somehow my accuracy improves because of increased concentration, and I don’t have the fallback that “I can always do it over with another take!”

And now some Good News: I PASSED my Spanish Oral Assessment test! On Monday I had a one-on-one twenty-minute discussion with one of my teachers in Cada Dia Spanish on two out of four topics of my choice. I decided to talk about my “trabajo” (work) and my “viajes” (trips). Luckily I can talk endlessly about my profession as an organist, even in Spanish, and one thing I’m looking forward to is being able to travel again soon. I just got my second vaccine yesterday, and have zero symptoms, not even a sore arm!

Woo hoo!