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 CCLI Top 100 Changed …And Nobody Is Talking About It.
In contemporary worship music, few names carry more name recognition than CCLI. For decades, its Top 100 list has been a trusted measure for identifying the songs shaping the contemporary church–something like a Billboard chart for worship. But in September 2024, with little fanfare, CCLI removed the long-standing list of user-reported top songs from the navigation pane (it’s still available with a few additional clicks). In its place under the “CCLI Top 100” link is now a different list: the one that used to be called the “Popular[...]
Following the Worship Money
Following the Worship Money: Publishers and Administrators Explore a series of interactive visualizations highlighting the changing ownership and administrative control of worship music's most popular songs since 2010. We’ve previously discussed the complex web of names at the top of the chord chart (i.e. songwriters), but what about those at the bottom? Who are entities like “That Dog Will Hunt Publishing,” “Vamos Publishing,” or “Pay Me Please Publishing”? Let’s explore the other players in the industry. Music royalties are collected through two revenue streams: the recording[...]