Baptist Hymnal<\/em>, which was also revised in 2008, and started adding to and curating the growing body of music on the site. It grew well beyond the number that could have been included in a physical book.<\/p>\nChurches could submit suggestions for new songs to include in the site\u2019s collection. But the staff also dug into the history of Baptist hymnody for older songs that might deserve a place in the expansive online resource.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t trying to be prescriptive, we were trying to be responsive,\u201d Harland said. \u201cWe would reach in both directions: we would reach back to songs we might have missed in the original hymnal and then we would be listening very closely to what was happening now.\u201d<\/p>\n
But from the beginning, lifewayworship.com was not intended to be a cutting-edge digital resource.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were a music company first, we weren\u2019t a computer company,\u201d Harland said. \u201cThere were certainly other companies that had more user-friendly platforms, but we aspired for our content to be the very best.\u201d<\/p>\n
The emphasis on musical quality over a more advanced interface is one of the things that made lifewayworship.com a beloved resource for many church musicians.<\/p>\n
John Strickland, pastor of worship and media at Tabernacle Baptist Church in New Bern, North Carolina, says that the instrumental arrangements for piano, strings, and winds are unmatched by what is available on similar platforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t have the ability or time to write custom instrumental arrangements,\u201d said Strickland. \u201cPianists who don\u2019t read chord charts or improvise easily can read these realized piano charts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strickland also said that he has come to rely on lifewayworship.com for parts for individual instruments when he doesn\u2019t have the musical forces for a full orchestra. Until recently, sites like PraiseCharts did not make instrumental parts available \u00e0 la carte<\/em>; directors had to purchase full orchestrations, which are more expensive.<\/p>\n\u201cIf I had a clarinet and a violin and nothing else, I could buy parts for them,\u201d said Strickland, who noted that small ensembles and solo musicians are common features in worship services for smaller churches, many of which do not have a full-time worship director with the time to compose and write out instrumental arrangements.<\/p>\n
Some ministers were dismayed by the news and upset it came so suddenly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a mess,\u201d wrote a music teacher and volunteer music minister from Texas on Facebook. \u201cI am going to have to work even harder to find good arrangements for church.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lifewayworship.com has generally been the more affordable option. A full orchestration of Chris Tomlin\u2019s \u201cHoly Forever\u201d is available on PraiseCharts for $52.95. On lifewayworship.com, the full score costs $6.99. PraiseCharts offers packages of \u00e0 la carte<\/em> arrangements for instrument groups\u2014saxophones, woodwinds, brass\u2014but not individual instruments. Lifewayworship.com breaks things down: $1.64 for an alto sax part, $1.64 for a cello part.<\/p>\nLifewayworship.com also allowed lay musicians to purchase music without a paid membership, unlike SongSelect, which best meets the needs of churches and organizational leaders and has memberships that start at $180 per year for copyrighted songs. An individual looking for piano music for a recent popular worship song or two won\u2019t be able to purchase it without a membership.<\/p>\n
Despite its reputation as a source of affordable and high-quality arrangements, however, lifewayworship.com lacked some of the in-demand features now provided by SongSelect and PraiseCharts. Integration with programs like Planning Center wasn\u2019t as simple with the site, the interface wasn\u2019t as intuitive, and it didn\u2019t provide charts using the Nashville number system.<\/p>\n
Brown at Lifeway Worship told CT that the company hopes to make its lifewayworship.com library available on its website in the future and that the publisher will continue to sell church resources such as hymnals, communion supplies, and sheet music. People who purchased any resources on the site will still be able to download them through the end of September.<\/p>\n
Lifeway Worship also plans to partner with the music retailer JW Pepper to make its instrumental arrangements from lifewayworship.com available for purchase. JW Pepper already has received titles from Lifeway\u2019s choral collection and the company can offer on-demand printing services for out-of-stock products.<\/p>\n
Lifeway Worship has no plans, however, to continue producing new music or musical arrangements after August 2023. But Brown is quick to point out that discussions about the future of Lifeway Worship are ongoing, and new music hasn\u2019t been ruled out.<\/p>\n
Will Bishop, associate professor of church music and worship at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of a recent study on musical practices in the SBC<\/a>, sees this as the end of an era for the 82-year-old Lifeway Worship, formerly the church music department of the SBC Sunday School Board.<\/p>\n\u201cIf a resource is not being used, it\u2019s going to go away,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n
Lifewayworship.com may have benefitted from the credibility of being affiliated with the SBC in its early days, Bishop said. But there has been a shift away from denominational musical resources. Lifeway stopped producing choral music in 2021. There hasn\u2019t been a new printed version of the Baptist Hymnal<\/em> since 2008, and there are no current plans for a new edition. The SBC publisher\u2019s decision to stop creating new arrangements of contemporary worship music is another step away from denominational music production.<\/p>\nAccording to Bishop, the signs of this coming change have been visible for several years. The trend was already going that direction and the pandemic only accelerated it.<\/p>\n
The director who led the development of lifewayworship.com is sanguine, however, about the future. Harland thinks the church music market still wants some version of the ever-evolving digital hymnal he and his staff developed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther companies will step in to fill the void,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Since he\u2019s left Lifeway, he and his church, First Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, have used lifewayworship.com alongside other tools. He anticipates some challenges as they adjust to the absence of the site he helped create, but he voiced overall optimism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe song will go on,\u201d he said. \u201cThe church will keep singing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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