LEXINGTON, Ky. (BP)

Harley Cannon, being blind, doesn't read music.

But that doesn't stop him from playing a crazy clavichord or a mean trumpet.

"That Harley is a piece of work, a talented musician," said Mike Hoover, minister of music at North View Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky. "Not only does he play keyboards and trumpet, but he sings too."

Hoover and Cannon have been the worship-leading team at North View for nearly five years -- in a match made in digital heaven.

Hoover uses the Worship Project on LifeWayWorship.com to coordinate all the music for the church. LifeWayWorship.com is a set of resources designed to provide the tools worship leaders need to create a rich and full worship experience for their churches. LifeWay Worship is a department of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Hoover, unlike most ministers of music, is quick to admit that he, too, doesn't read music.

"No, not at all," he said with a chuckle. "I've depended on technology to help me do worship planning since the days of the 'Celebrate Jesus' book with split tracks!"

Being bivocational, Hoover doesn't have a lot of time for planning. He spends his mornings and afternoons driving a school bus route, working at the school bus garage in between.

Hoover and Cannon learned to use LifeWayWorship.com to quickly and seamlessly create an order of worship that both of them can follow.

Hoover prepares the order of worship on Monday and Tuesday nights.

"What I love about having access to the resources on the Worship Project," he said, "is that I can find out from the pastor what the Scripture passage for the week will be and then go online and find music that will coordinate with it.

"I can download the order of worship and music and put it in a dropbox for Harley to download," Hoover said. "Once he gets it, he translates the order of service into Braille and listens to the music two or three times and he's ready to play. It's so easy!"

Cannon said he usually listens to the music while he's exercising.

"I walk on the treadmill for about 45 minutes every day," he said. "Having the music to listen to helps. By the time we get together, we've heard the same music and we're ready to go."

Hoover said LifeWayWorship.com has revolutionized the musical worship for North View.

"It just makes so many things possible for us," he said. "I can find the music I want, download it for Harley and send it to him. I can download the song from the digital hymnal portion of the Worship Project so my choir can listen to it. I can get printouts of the music for the choir. It works!"

Cannon agreed that the resource makes things simple, adding, "You don't have to be blind to appreciate the convenience of it. It'd work for anybody."

One Wednesday night, for example, Hoover had some cold and allergy issues and couldn't sing. He needed to introduce a new song to the choir for Sunday morning. So he played the MP3 and had them sing along while Cannon played the keyboard and added in a trumpet part.

"Without the technology that LifeWayWorship.com offers, I couldn't have made all that happen in the time we had," Hoover said.

Having had time to go over the music in his head for a couple of days, Cannon has the opportunity to experiment with some sound.

"Every once in a while, I'll throw in something Mike doesn't expect," Cannon said with a laugh. "I'll drop the keyboard and just let the choir sing a chorus or a verse or maybe improvise a variation on the melody, but they are good to just follow along wherever I take them. I just tell them to keep up!"

North View isn't a large church, running about 100 on Sunday mornings. Hoover said as helpful as LifeWayWorship.com is, he imagines it would seem almost like a miracle for smaller churches.

"My brother is the pastor of a tiny church in Viney Fork, Ky.," Hoover said. "He does everything -- preaching, teaching and music. He uses LifeWayWorship.com too. He doesn't have musicians. He may just have three or four people in the choir, but he'll have good music."

Mike Harland, director of LifeWay Worship, noted that many Southern Baptist churches struggle to find musicians. "LifeWayWorship.com could be so beneficial to these churches, giving them the means to provide a quality worship experience no matter how many worshippers they have," he said.

"It was our hope and prayer from the inception of LifeWayWorship.com that ministers of music, as well as the single staff member churches, would be able to have a quality worship experience for their members, no matter how many or how few," Harland said.

Polly House is a writer for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention

For more information about the Worship Project, the digital hymnal and other worship resources, visit LifeWayWorship.com.

Bring the worship songs of the 2011 CentriKid camps home to your church with the new CentriKid Worship Charts series! Chosen specially for CentriKid camps this summer, these songs are made for first through sixth graders to lift up the name of the Lord in worship.

You'll find well-known worship songs from writers you know with lead sheets for singers and players and QuickCharts for your guitarist or bass player (no page turns!), ready for your kids' worship team to play.

Kenny Lamm from North Carolina has an interesting first post in a new series on choosing a worship style in your church. Try to guess what the writer of this article was talking about:

One, it's too new.
Two, it's often worldly, even blasphemous.
[It] is not as pleasant as the more established style.
Because there are so many songs, you can't learn them all.
It puts too much emphasis on instrumental music rather than Godly lyrics.
This new music creates disturbances making people act indecently and disorderly.
The preceding generation got along without it.
It's a money making scene and some of these new music upstarts are lewd and loose.

If you are having a mission emphasis at your church this December, this song is for you!

LifeWay Worship, in cooperation with the International Mission Board, is making available to you charts and tracks for the new mission song "Are We There Yet?" Rick Heil of SONICFLOOd was inspired to write this amazing song during trips to areas of the world where there are still unreached people for Christ. This song is our gift, Rick's the IMB's and LifeWay's, to help you inspire your congregation to connect, grow, serve and go to help spread the soul-saving message of the Gospel to make disciples of all nations.

Imagine a day when your church made evangelism the priority... along with thousands of other churches across America!

The North American Mission Board has declared October 3, 2010 as "Soul-Winning Commitment Day." The reason, simply stated, is about building relationships with the lost and reaching them with the good news of Jesus Christ.

At TheBigDay.org there are loads of resources that your church can use to prepare for your own evangelism emphasis day, including two suggested service outlines for blended and contemporary worship services. The good news is that you can get all of the songs they suggest right here at LifeWayWorship.com!

Blended Service Outline Songs

• Sing to the King
• My Savior's Love (I Stand Amazed in the Presence)
• My Savior, My God
• The Wonderful Cross/When I Survey
• You Are My King (Amazing Love)
• Revelation Song
• How Deep the Father's Love for Us
• I Will Offer up My Life
• Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

• Hosanna
• Marvelous Light
• Everlasting God
• My Savior, My God
• How Deep the Father's Love for Us
• Lead Me to the Cross
• Revelation Song
• God of This City
• Mighty to Save

But it doesn't stop there... because our search is so comprehensive, you can search for "evangelism" or search for "for the lost" and find all kinds of songs that you could plan in worship either prior to, or for the big day. Maybe you can only remember a phrase from a song... something random like "Have you urged upon those who are straying..." type that into the search box and you'll find exactly what you want.

If you're in Orlando this week with the SBC Annual Meeting, come see us! We'll actually be in two different places in the LifeWay area. There's a LifeWay Worship area where we'll feature our whole product world... everything from anthems to Children's choir to events to the Worship Project, plus we'll be part of the LifeWay Digital Church booth, where you can see live demonstrations of LifeWayWorship.com all day. Look for the LifeWay Worship banners to find us.

The SBC Annual Meeting is a great time for us to connect with churches of every size and worship style to share how you can use LifeWayWorship.com in your ministry. Even if you're not "the music person," stop by either booth and we'll give you a code good for some free downloads at the site!

June marks the beginning of "event season" at LifeWayWorship.com. We're going to be on the road all over the nation, hoping to meet you face-to-face and let you know more about what's going on at LifeWay Worship.

At each event, you'll be able to talk with LifeWay-trained people who can answer questions you have about SongMap™, WorshipMap Pro, or any of the products, events and services that LifeWay Worship has to offer. Some of them are more worship team-focused, and others are more broad based, offering training in everything from children's choir to orchestra.

Over the next few days, we'll give you more details about these events, but to get you started, here's a list...

What is a Digital Church, anyway?

According to our CIO, it's "solutions that will help churches be more effective in ministry." Well that about sums up LifeWayWorship.com, doesn't it?

The longer explanation is that LifeWay has been spending time researching the options that churches have to get things done in the cloud. We've been checking out everything from church management to event planning and online giving to building your own church website and have come up with a "LifeWay Recommends" list for your ministry. You might find one or all of these services useful to you. I'm pretty sure you've found one of them useful already or you wouldn't be here reading this!

Let us know what you think of the Digital Church. What other web based services have you used to get ministry done? Leave a comment, or stop by the Digital Church booth at the SBC this year and find out more!

If you appreciate collegiate concert choirs and are near Hannibal, MO, check out the Hannibal-LaGrange Concert Choir concert on April 22.

During the evening concert, various collegiate performing groups will be performing selections from the 2008 Baptist Hymnal. Special guests will include MO State Worship Specialist John Francis, local music ministers, and LifeWay's Mike Harland and Brian Brown. For more information, visit the Hannibal-LaGrange College website.

LifeWay recently hosted music leaders from various Southern Baptist state conventions. I have much gratitude for these men and women as they seek to equip and empower the music ministers in their respective states through various training events. The support that they have given LifeWayWorship.com is greatly appreciated.

Check our list of training events to see if there's one near you.

Question: If you could design an event for worship leaders / music ministers, what would it include?

LifeWay Worship hosts SBC state music leaders

Marvin Owen (WY), Bill Archer (MD), and LifeWay's Keith Wilbanks

LifeWay Worship director Mike Harland addresses state leaders

LifeWay's Jonathan Riggs and Paul Clark (TN)

LifeWay's Celia Powers and David Red (NM)

Tom Ingram (VA), Steve Blanchard (IN), and LifeWay's Terry Terry

Tim Studstill (TX Baptist) and LifeWay's Karen Gilchrist

David Red (NM), Paul Clark (TN), and LifeWay's Michelle Guy