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
Sing Local: Churches Have Plenty to Sing—Why Write New Songs?
Sing Local: Churches Have Plenty to Sing—Why Write New Songs? Imagine this: A worship leader brings a new song to rehearsal, written by someone in the church. But the worship team already has a full set to prepare, and no one in the congregation knows the words yet. Does the song make it into the Sunday worship set? In our 2025 survey, we asked worship leaders about original songs written for their local churches: who writes them, why they write, and what happens when those songs[...]
Worship Leader Survey Report Now Available
Worship Leader Research has released the "2025 Worship Leader Survey Report," published June 2026. With 3,384 eligible responses from worship leaders across North America, this is the largest multi-denominational survey of its kind to date. Where earlier WLR work mapped the dominant sources behind today's most-sung worship songs, this report expands the focus from the songs to the people who choose them. A fully interactive Data Explorer version is in progress. To explore the full results, please view the report. Read Survey Report
