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
The Worship Industry is Younger Than You Think
Dear Worship Leader Research, Hasn’t it always been the case that a small number of churches have dominated the contemporary worship industry? Sincerely, Concerned Worship Leader We’ve been getting this question a lot lately. It’s a good question and it does appear that way from a 30,000-foot view of history. But the question possesses (at least) two assumptions that make answering the question a bit tricky. First, it assumes there has always been a centralized contemporary praise and worship music industry in which churches/labels participated and[...]
How Songs Like “Great Are You Lord” Are Connected to the “Big 4” Worship Megachurches
When it comes to sharing a new worship song with the world, it takes a village. When it comes to the Top 25 songs sung in local churches, that village has, in recent years, had four central “megachurch” leaders: Bethel Music, Hillsong, Passion, and Elevation Worship. In our team’s first article, we identified that, between 2010 and 2020, only 38 newly-released titles appeared on both the CCLI and PraiseCharts Top 25 lists. Of those 38, 33 titles were directly connected to the “Big 4,” whether by known associations[...]