That's a big space and a beautiful building. I've heard of it and even seen old woodcuts of the exterior in books about the American Civil War but never seen the interior until now. A very nice example of its period and location.

Looking at it, unless your congregation can fit in the front three or four rows I'd be inclined to use subtle sound reinforcement for a small choir in there even without competition from the organ.

Pipe organs can sound amazing, but the volume that comes out of them at working air pressure is the only volume setting there is of course. Maybe encourage the organist to pull out a few fewer stops?

Fwrend is absolutely right that getting things balanced sound-wise has to be a process of taking everyone with you if it's going to work. In the end it's a win-win game because everyone benefits - musicians, singers, congregation, leaders and speakers because everything can be heard, no one is deafened and no-one has to strain their voice any more.

The main problem I can immediately imagine with the single mic at several feet scenario is that to get the mic's gain high enough for it to be doing much you might be getting much closer to the brink of feedback than you'd like. Spill from the organ (not just direct but from the building's natural reverb which will also be time-lagged) might be a problem as well. The further away a cardoid mic is the more spill it"s going to pick up and re-amplify and we all know where that ends up.

On the other hand, obtrusive mic stands would look out of place in that setting and I doubt you really need a mic for every singer anyway, and sound-checking would become a significant exercise if you did. There are mics and stands that are intended to blend in or "disappear" such as the AKG DAM+ range. The catch is that many of them are intended to be stood on a desk or lectern so are only 18" or so long. It might be worth your while having a chat with your local theatres, who might face similar problems of balance and projection, and find out what they are using. If individual mics are an acceptable solution might headset or lapel mics be a possibility?

The other thing to consider is speaker placement (how many as well as where), unless you've already got an adequate setup.

Speakers already exist and are used by the Clergy. The speakers are in odd locations on the wings. You are right about the feedback problem. I have no idea how I might manage to get a mic setup where we wouldn't get feedback, but I think it's worth a try. never know until you test it out.
 
I don't think there will be any hands on the board during the service. Other than the mics the clergy wear there's really no sound re-enforcement now.
 
I'm not sure how many people are in there at the different services. Maybe 100 - 150 for the 9 AM. I rarely go to the 11 and of course there's a lot of fluctuation depending on the Sunday.
 
Often for the 9 AM the Choir sits in the front rows (which the parishioners tend to avoid anyway). They roll a piano up there, and to tell the truth the Piano with the choir isn't 1/2 bad in terms of sound. They work fairly well together.
 
The organ is cool, but it's just so loud. Maybe a few hypercardioids on the choir? I'm not sure. I don't have any hypercardioids to try. I've got a pair of KM184s I thought I'd see how they work.
 
This is a recording of the choir in the Atrium (used to an outdoor courtyard sorta thing but we glassed in one of them and now it's an 'atrium'. :-) super verby.
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141130_David_18.mp3
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141130_David_20.mp3
 

Since you mention Civil War history, there's an interesting story regarding the church from that time. As you may know, Robert E. Lee was asked by Lincoln to lead the armies of the north and he said he would take the side of Virginia, which ever side Virginia chose. Right across the street from this church, my daughter and I sat one day where the decision was made for Virginia to leave the Union. It was a close run thing apparently (88-55). Well, after the war, when it came time for communion in this church, an African American man bravely went up first and knelt to receive communion. The church stayed silent for a time until Robert E. Lee went up and knelt beside him. And then things proceeded as normal. At the time, parishioners purchased their pews and Lee's Pew was about the middle on the left hand wing, so he would not normally have been first to approach for communion. The church was a black-tie church for a time.
 
Jeans are now as common as not. (btw, I hope this wasn't tmi).
 
At one point, I wanted to record an impulse from different places in the church, but I think the idea of firing a starter-gun in the church made a lot of the folks uncomfy. Also, turns out getting something to make the impulse (like a starter gun) aint cheap. If you want an impulse, I could probably record a loud noise like the popping of balloon or something.
 

 
gswitz, if you use Room EQ Wizard  you can test the space without an explosion.  It uses a frequency sweep which is magically ... mathematically transformed into the equivalent.   It's free but may represent more work than you want to get into for something that big and resonant.
 
I sang in a choir just a few years ago.  We were 110 strong and normally didn't require reinforcement in a church.  But in the local modern high-tech concert hall, which is as dead as you can imagine and all reverb is artificially produced (I hate the system) we were mic'ed by 6 mics spread evenly across the front on stands.  I guess we would have been 30-40 feet wide, maybe six people deep.  The stands were just about invisible from the audience since they got lost in the colours of the singers clothing.  We had some massive monitors on either side of the stage (necessary because of the deadness) but feedback wasn't an issue.  I can't remember what kind of mics they were, I seem to remember they were Newmans.  Just to say that you can capture a group from a certain distance from a single mic without too much problem but we didn't have a huge organ using the space as a massive pipe.
 
Doing the sound in a church setting must be very rewarding.  I did it for our practices in a local very small chuch, but it was only necessary for soloists and the few electrical instruments going out through cheap speakers on the walls.
 
 

Paul,
 
I went and grabbed the tool you pointed me too and gave it a test in my room I call the studio...

 
The large number of varied peaks and valleys above 1K seemed to move every time I re-ran the test, but in the low end I could see some basic EQ Guidance.
 
I was thinking of getting the impulse from the church to use with convolution reverbs, not setting the eq. To tell the truth, the church's speaker system is not so great. It's ok for spoken word, but I'm not sure I'd want to trust it for full testing the room.
 
The benefit of recording a starter gun is it wouldn't depend on the speaker system. I'd just capture the sound with mics.

That room gives me the hee bee gee bees....   as a musician, that would be a nightmare for acoustics with all those hard surfaces.
 
The organ volume vs choir.... good suggestions from the folks above..... if the organist isn't willing to listen to reason and trust the FOH (assuming there's someone there who knows what to do)....it's going to be a hard thing to deal with. Limit the volume on the organ.... secure the amp volume.   I used to attend a church as a kid where there was a piano player and an organ player.... the organ player ALWAYS was the loudest... ego issues....   In modern P&W bands, the musicians are generally more professional in the better church bands. Many modern churches are also going to quiet/silent stages with AVIOM  and other personal monitoring systems.  That solves the issue but the organ might not be easy to integrate into that kind of system especially if it's a pipe organ. In that case..... visit a music store and buy a MIDI keyboard with organ and use that..... good luck on getting the pipe organist to agree to that.   Use the Pipe organ for special music and such things.... NOT for backing the choir.
 
Untrained people using a mic..... oh the pain...oh the agony.....  where do you even start with that?  A shotgun mic might work if the FOH or the sound crew can get closer to the group.... that way the person isn't holding the mic....
 
There are also condenser mics for choir that are suspended from the ceilings in many churches..... simply install one and mark the stage under it.... tape on the floor in a semi circle lets people know where to stand to be in it's pickup range...... waaa laaa!  These are tiny mics and people seem to forget they are there.... lower it to a foot or so above them and you should be able to pick them up nicely.
 
Anyway,   those are my rambling thoughts on that topic..... politics of churches and the ego's of those in positions of (what they think is) power, are a real pain in the posterior..... good luck with that.

Thanks for the tips, GuitarHacker.
 
I don't think there's a realistic chance to abandon the pipe organ. The alternative is the piano that they have already implemented at the front of the church. There is no FOH person controlling mixes. Pretty much everything is just as is --- natural with no volume nobs. There is sometimes a bassist and guitarist who accompany the piano at the front of the church. The guitar is so quiet I was thinking of it sounding a bit like resonance on a Synth. Almost quiet beyond notice. The bass can be heard just barely. The bass is plugged in. The guitar is an acoustic (no amp).
 
All the musicians try pretty hard and do have talent of varying degrees. Mostly, the interest seems to be to say... 'can we make it better within a reasonable budget?'
 
I haven't had a chance to try any of the things we've talked about in this thread. I'll keep you posted.

That's one special organ, I'll bet it sounds awesome.
 
http://www.stpaulsrva.org/download_file/view/226/
 
I have a friend who tunes pipe organs and I occasionally get to travel with him and climb up in the pipes while helping him work. I find them as fascinating to look at as they are fascinating to listen too.
 
 

Nice find, Mike! I had not read that before. I've been a member of the church since 1970. I was christened, choir boy for 8 years, boy scout, youth group, confirmed, and eventually married by the church (got married in my parent's back yard in a small ceremony by the pastor of the church). My parents both live in town and are both still active too.
 
The church has changed a lot over the years. It's a downtown church in a gay friendly city. One of the saddest things that happened in recent memory is two of our parishioners went out of town to get married because Virginia did not have legal gay marriage. Marriage for all in Virginia just became legal on Oct 6, 2014 (thankfully). "The world is learning." ~ Roger Waters
 
I said the church was hippie because I see it that way often. But in fairness, the church is big and not all hippie. Perhaps very liberal might be a better way of describing it.
 
The article you found, Mike, was written by our current musical director and I had not seen it. Thanks for sharing!
 
The Organ sounds great. It always has. We used to have pipes in the front and the back. Now they are all in the back. Some of the performances of Grant Helmers who was the old director were just stunning! There were pipes up near the front and around the bema (stage) as well. It was the most amazing surround sound organ and when he rolled it was just wild.
 
I praise Grant not to take away from David Sinden who wrote the text you linked to and has brought lots of wonderful music to the house as well.

BTW, at church yesterday, I watched the celebration circle thinking about where to put an omni mic. They have a second alter out in the middle of the Bema and everyone circles around it, both for the breaking of the bread and the celebration circle. Speaking practically, the best place for the mic would be the middle of the alter. So that would mean probably moving the circle to not surround the alter and instead surround the mic. While this may be possible, it seems like an imposition that would have to have significant benefits to be justified. I'm guessing it's not worth it.
 
I definitely want to try the cardioid condenser on the choir. I did notice that during the service they sing from the front towards the back and during communion they turn and face the front. So, basically the mic would suddenly be on the wrong side of the group. I think only re-enforcing the choir when they are singing with the Organ is my thought for the whole thing.
 
When the choir turns to face the front it really is like having the whole crowd in the first 3-4 rows as TLW noted. I really don't think amping the choir is necessary at that point in the service.
 
I'll have to go to the 11 AM service one day and see how it works then.