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WorshipLeaderResearch.com is the home for articles and news related to a collaborative study focused on the behaviours of the primary contributors to contemporary worship and the attitudes and behaviours of local worship leaders towards them. By exploring the relationships between quantitative and qualitative data, we hope to better understand the relationship between the worship music industry and local worship practitioners. The study aims to equip practitioners with a deeper understanding of the forces that impact their corporate worship song selections.

Articles

You Had To Be There

The method by which we encounter new songs may have a greater impact upon our likelihood of adopting them than the contents of the songs themselves..    Over the past few articles, we have explored some of the most notable results from our 2022 survey of over 400 worship leaders. Our most recent article (which primarily looked at the complicated relationship between Worship Leaders and Christian radio) revealed that WLs find “live events and/or conferences” to be the likeliest source of new worship songs: Survey respondents were asked[...]

By |December 6, 2023|Comments Off on You Had To Be There

From the Playlist to the Pews

Introduction We may not recognize it often, but the local Worship Leader might be a music industry powerhouse. You see, long before a chord rings out each and every Sunday, he or she chooses a humble set of songs—an offering if you will. But this “simple” choice extends beyond the church walls with a surprising impact on an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In this article, we examine Worship Leader attitudes toward several key methods of new song discovery and the correlation between these local[...]

By |November 8, 2023|Comments Off on From the Playlist to the Pews

Resources

Worship Leader Survey Report Now Available

Worship Leader Research has released the comprehensive "Worship Leader Survey Report (2022)", a key element in Phase 2 of WLR’s ongoing contemporary worship music study. In this pivotal report, insights are revealed about the attitudes of over 400 worship[...]

Dr Perez, Dr Baker, present WLR findings at SCSM 2023, Duke Divinity

Two researchers from Worship Leader Research, Dr. Adam Perez from Belmont University and Dr. Shannan Baker from Baylor University, recently participated in the annual meeting of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music hosted by Duke University Divinity School. The[...]

Study Methodology

In 2021, six curious people, with various academic, pastoral, and music industry backgrounds, met to frame two main questions. Firstly, we asked, “What can be said about the volume of popular worship music Christians are singing today?” Secondly, we[...]

WLR Granted 2023 Vital Worship Grant

We are pleased to report that Dr. Adam Perez and the Worship Leader Research team have been awarded a Vital Worship grant through the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, a competitive research grant program "designed to foster, strengthen and sustain[...]

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COLLABORATORS
Dr. Shannan Baker
Dr. Shannan BakerPostdoctoral Fellow in Music and Digital Humanities
Baylor University
Elias Dummer
Elias DummerRecording Artist, Worship Leader, Strategic Marketing Consultant
Rockfirm Marketing, The City Harmonic
Marc Jolicoeur
Marc JolicoeurDiscipleship Pastor & Affiliate Professor
Moncton Wesleyan Church / Kingswood University
Dr. Adam Perez
Dr. Adam PerezAssistant Professor of Worship Studies
Belmont University
Dr. Mike Tapper
Dr. Mike TapperChair of the School of Religion and Humanities and Professor of Religion
Southern Wesleyan University
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