Before organs began to be installed all over England, parish churches generally had a small band of musicians (violin, viola, flute etc) which performed up in the gallery, if there was one, as an accompaniment to the hymns. Thomas Hardy describes this in some of his novels.
Then the Victorians, those vandals of medieval and Georgian Church architecture, became determined to spoil many a side chapel and install thundering great organs, which as BobL says, drown out any attempt at prayer or hymn singing.

I've been to Gaelic services in the Hebrides, where there's no organ, and the Precentor leads the Psalms by starting off while the congregation follow about three notes behind, singing 'open voice'. The result is strange and captivating.

In Senegal however, there's often a huge group of drummers (and I mean those massive hollow logs that sound like a bomb!) and other percussionists, but because it was my beloved Africa, I absolutely adored it, and danced along with the congregation. The Catholic Mass in Djouloulou had incense, drumming, African singing and translators into three different languages, Djola, Wolof and French. All the women were in extremely bright pagnes and foulards. I was in heaven.

Our organist in the village knows not to get too excited with the stops, and to restrain himself so we can all think straight!