[scrabblehack]

Depending on the church, it might be OK for a member to suggest a hymn. I got talking to the music director about the Titanic one day - I don’t remember what brought that up - but I suggested that he put “Nearer My God To Thee” on the schedule for the following April. There is conflicting evidence whether it was the American or the British melody that was played on the Titanic - I’m inclined to think it was the British version. Anyway he did put it on the schedule.

[Fiji Hill]

The melody to "Nearer, My God, to Thee" that we are familiar with in the US was composed by Lowell Mason, an American whose most famous tune was "Joy to the World!" (1836), with lyrics written more than a century earlier by Isaac Watts. Just about every American knows this gospel song.

"Nearer, My God, to Thee" probably wasn't played on the Titanic, but it was played by a Confederate band on the Gettysburg battlefield.

Mason also wrote From Greenland's Icy Mountains" (1823) with lyrics by the prolific English hymnodist Reginald Heber. This stirring gospel tune is way to politically incorrect for many "woke" churches today.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Depending on the church, it might be OK for a member to suggest a hymn.”

In our church when I was growing up, we had regular hymns in the morning worship service and prayer meeting. Same with the Sunday evening service, except that one Sunday night each month we’d have a “singspiration” where the congregation would choose the hymns to be sung.