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.

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!

BREAKING NEWS. LifeWay Worship has entered into an agreement with Corevalus Systems that integrates the digital portion of the LifeWay Worship Project and SamePage™ technologies, thus allowing the inclusion of LifeWay's WorshipCharts with the purchase of SamePage performance stations. Read full press release.

Over 900 hymns, worship songs, and hymn arrangements are now available at LifeWayWorship.com! WorshipCharts, WorshipTracks, and Powerpoint® are ready to be purchased, downloaded, and used in your ministry. Click here to get started.
We'd love to know how you're using LifeWayWorship.com. Drop us a line at this email address, or by commenting here at the LifeWay Worship Project Blog.

Christianity Today looks at various protestant sources for worship, including our very own Baptist Hymnal™ and how they invoke the transliteration of the name of God.

Chris gives his first impression of the 2008 Baptist Hymnal.

We've passed a milestone with the Worship Project. If you've been looking at our websites or reading our brochures, you know that we drew a line in the sand on a certain date: 08.08.08. Our goal was to have the pew edition hymnal ready by that day. Well, we beat that day by a bit.

Here in Nashville last Friday, we celebrated and dedicated the Worship Project at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center with one of our PraiSing '08 events. Keith and Kristyn Getty were there along with Buryl Red, Travis Cottrell, Camp Kirkland and the Nashville Praise Symphony, and the Tennessee Baptist Men's Chorale.

Ken Hamilton was there!

This, of course, begs the question... what's next? We heard all about 08.08.08, now where's the rest?

The good news is: soon. Here are some dates to look for:

• Orchestrations - by the end of August/early September
• Worship Tracks - middle of September
• Videos - first volumes middle of September
• Leadsheets and QuickCharts - by the middle of October

Read Dr. Terry's account of how the pew edition came into being.

WIS TV did a story on the "makeover" of the Baptist Hymnal.

If you see other news coverage that hasn't made it onto the blog, please email us at the link in the right hand column!