Building sample

Excerpt (1-1/4 minutes) from tape T1 in Collection 410, oral history interview with Art Rorheim (involved in the Tabernacle's youth program as a participant and later as a leader) recorded by Bob Shuster on March 31, 1989.

SHUSTER: What was a typical service at the Tabernacle like?

RORHEIM: Well, the Tabernacle I've often said perhaps the most unusual...I look at it as the most unusual church the world has ever known. There...the reason I say that is, well, here you'd walk into the Tabernacle and here it...it's just a tabernacle with sawdust floor, you know, and...and wooden benches for seats. And you'd see these big coal stoves along each side that heated the place. But the place was just ignited with the real Spirit of the Lord. There'd be a band of maybe fifty pieces up on the platform that...Richard Oliver was the man who led that band. And then they would...they would have two, three big grand pianos on the platform. And they had an organ that was supposed to be the second largest organ in the city of Chicago that really rocked that place with beautiful music as...as Merrill Dunlop and Doc. Latham would play that organ. And...and then too the thing that's interesting there, it was before the days of PA [public address] system. There was no PA system. And they just kind of had a baffle up behind the...the speaker up there to help push the sound out and....