Pacific Union College Church, Seventh-day Adventist church in Angwin, Napa Valley, US.
Pacific Union College Church is the campus church of Pacific Union College in Angwin, Napa Valley, California, part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The 1968 building holds a sanctuary whose front stage carries a Rieger pipe organ rising 50 feet (15 m) above it, with 4,000 pipes from two inches to 20 feet in size.
The congregation first met in 1909 in a former dance hall, shortly after the college moved from Healdsburg to Angwin, with 42 charter members. It met in the chapel of the new college building from 1919 and counted 290 members by 1921. Until 1947 the pastor also headed the college's theology department. The congregation moved into its own building in 1968.
The congregation began in 1909 with 42 charter members and had 290 by 1921; until 1947 its pastor also headed the college's theology department. A church-school fund let all the church's children attend the school. In 2000 it was the only church in the Northern California Conference with a female pastor, and in 2010 it raised over $25,000 for Haiti earthquake relief.
The sanctuary sits at the front of the campus church, with the organ rising 50 feet above the front stage, so seating near the balcony gives a clear view of the instrument. The building is on the Pacific Union College campus in Angwin, reachable by car along the Napa Valley roads. Visitors should note that services follow Seventh-day Adventist practice on Saturday.
The Rieger organ rises 50 feet above the front stage, its 4,000 pipes ranging from two inches to 20 feet. Designers placed it at the front because they feared the balcony would shake. Completed in 1981, it was then the largest organ Rieger Orgelbau had built, and in 1996 German organists ranked it among the 35 most important organs in the United States.
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