Rebecca,
How did it go?

Russ, you did get my back up with saying choirs don't want the congregations to sing. I must admit I'm not always sure about the organist, but choirs do want the congregation to sing. I do agree that wanting the congregation to sing and knowing how to really accomplish it are 2 different things. In my personal look at history, it seems like every movement to improve congregational singing has ended up producing choirs. I'm personally inclined to think the organ does little or nothing to encourage congregational singing. I'd prefer almost anything, piano, guitars, a-cappella with strong leaders to organ, especially one played badly.

In a bit of defense for the organists, there are more churches that want organists than there are good ones out there. Most churches do not need & cannot afford to hire a full time musician so often the organist doing the best they can with somewhat limited skills. As to key, that's set by the hymnal they're playing from unless they are really good at transposing at the keyboard.

The recent hymnal compilers, so far as I can tell, have tried to put the hymns in more singable keys than the originals often are. I compared my Welsh-American book to the Presbyterian Hymnal and found that almost all hymns in both were a step & sometimes 2 lower in the Presby than in the Welsh, which really does want part singing. I meant to ask some of the alto in choir how uncomfortable they feel on the melodies in our hymnal but forgot. I looked at a couple of hymnals where it seems like the expected range is mostly and octave from d-d. Any that go higher always seem to also go down to c or b, & they don't seem to want to go lower than that.