un-boring church music

I attended a church service at which I’d assumed there would be piano. I was wrong. There was organ instead. Now, no matter how scary I think piano is, organ is much, much worse. Just making my hands move independently took me a while. Making my hands and feet...no, I don’t even want to go there.
This service was composed of both traditional Bach-like tunes and hymns by modern American composers like David Haas. Although the hymns were led by a rather sub-standard singer, the organist was an excellent player. One really good thing I noticed about his playing was his tempos. Although he did have the tendency to slow down as the verses progressed, he started the hymns at good, alive tempos (necessary to keep the choir from dying).
One cause of this slight tempo issue might be his unusual use of harmonies and ornamental runs. In the first verses of each song, the organist played the traditional harmonies and chord progressions. As every organist I have ever heard plays the same exact harmonies, this definitely gets boring. However, in the final verse of the hymns, this organist used new harmonies and strange chord progressions I had never heard before. These new harmonies were very interesting, though I didn’t always prefer them to the originals. He made no technical errors—I was just not very fond of some of his musical choices. For instance, in “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” which traditionally is played using the harmonization of Ralph Vaughan Williams, he played the third verse with almost completely new harmonization. I didn’t think that it had the same fulfilling qualities as Vaughan William’s version. But I am picky—and I doubt anyone else noticed at all. However, no new harmonization occurred in any of the modern pieces, such as David Haas’ “Here I Am, Lord.” But generally I prefer Haas’ music to be played on the piano rather than on the organ; I feel that the piano lends itself to gentler emotion, and more pliable rhythm, than the organ does.
Overall, the organist added a lot to the service—where would church music be without the organ? Also, I really appreciated the fact that he took the time to write new harmonies for some of the tunes. Even if there were a few strange chords, he showed a great care and interest in reviving this music, which is usually so boring that no one even notices which song they’re singing.