A Digital Hymnal Meets Its Demise
Once hailed as the future of Baptist church music, lifewayworship.com is shutting down.
Lifeway is closing the book on an online hymnal that was supposed to be the digital future of Baptist music.
The online resource lifewayworship.com, which provides church choirs and worship teams access to more than 3,000 songs as well as instrumental arrangements, sheet music, and chord charts, will shut down at the end of September.
Lifeway, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), announced the decision Tuesday. The publisher said it has decided to “focus its resources on areas where we can faithfully serve more churches in greater breadth and depth.”
When Lifeway launched the site in 2008, it was envisioned as a modern hymnal that would continually grow and expand, making Baptist music widely available. The website struggled to compete against other services, though, that did not have the same denominational limitations.
“The reality is the vast majority of churches have chosen SongSelect and PraiseCharts as their preferred services,” said Brian Brown, current director of Lifeway Worship. “We are prayerfully considering how we might continue to serve leaders.”
The previous director, Mike Harland, said the development of lifewayworship.com began with a conversation about the future of the Baptist Hymnal. Harland and his staff wanted to imagine a new, online future for Baptist church music.
“Our goal was to create a hymnal with no back cover,” he said.
They started with the 674 songs in the Baptist Hymnal, 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.
Churches could submit suggestions for new songs to include in the site’s ...