A venerable publisher of religious music is moving its headquarters from Kansas City to the Trevecca Nazarene University campus.

Lillenas Publishing has been based in the same building since Nazarene Publishing House acquired the company in 1930. But Director Tim Curtis told NashvillePost.com that its small leadership team will soon make the move to Trevecca's central Tidwell Building and bring into that space a number of Nashville-area creastive employees who have been working from home in recent years. In all, Lillenas will have an HQ staff of eight.

"This give us the opportunity to establish roots in this city [...] and to bring a new emphasis on our core publishing business," Curtis said. "It will also be good for bringing youth into what we do. We're almost 86 years old and it's always a challenge to reinvent yourself."

Curtis said Lillenas, which owns the copyrights to more than 20,000 songs and works with more than 50,000 churches around the world, has ties to a large number of Nashville-area writers, arrangers and recording musicians and hopes to cement those bonds as a result of its move.

Also building tighter ties to Music City is a new five-year partnership with LifeWay Worship, which is now handling the sales and order fulfillment for Lillenas. The move will help Lillenas expand its publishing schedule and grow its congregation base as well as loyalty program subscribers.

"We're expecting very, very significant growth in market share," Curtis said. "In the next few years, we could double our reach."