An Evening with Fanny Crosby

Tomorrow night, the GospelFest Singers will be presenting "An Evening with Fanny Crosby" at the United Methodist Church in Douglass, IL. We've been doing this program now for several years and it's always popular.

Fanny Crosby is one of America's most prolific hymnwriters, having written over 8,000 hymns during her 95 years on earth. Blind from six weeks of age, she discovered her writing gift during her early teen years. She studied at the New York Institute for the Blind and later became a teacher at the school, along with her husband who was also blind.

Fanny only wrote the texts of her hymns. The melodies were written by many different hymn writers of the day, including William H. Doane, Phoebe Knapp, Robert Lowry and William J. Kirkpatrick. She used many different pseudonyms for her hymns. One reason for this was because at one time, she was the only writer on staff at the Bigelow & Main Publishing Company and her bosses didn't want their competition to know they could only afford one writer!

Our program is a biography of this great hymn writer and talks about her life while weaving in many of her most popular hymns. This was a woman who allowed herself to be used by God, despite her physical handicap, to share His love with others. What an inspiration!

Some of Fanny's more popular hymns include "To God Be The Glory," "He Hideth My Soul," "Redeemed," and of course "Blessed Assurance." If you'd like to have "An Evening with Fanny Crosby" at your church or event, please contact us by visiting our website at www.gospelfestradio.com.