Wishful Worship: The role of aspiration in Sunday morning setlists “Do you wish your church was more similar in worship culture/style to the churches and/or artists like The Big 4?”  In our survey of over 400 worship leaders (WLs), this question was posed regarding the influence of “culture” and[...]

When worship leaders talk about age, it’s mostly about the question of “aging out” and the hurt that has come from churches appearing to pass over older worship leaders in favor of their younger and more stylish counterparts. But “with age comes wisdom,” so the saying goes – does this[...]

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[...]

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[...]

How do worship leaders (WLs) feel about prominent Big 4 brands, and how does brand affiliation affect song selection? This question raises a largely undetected and unexplored tension between what Worship Leaders say they do when they select songs and what they may actually do. If this discrepancy between intention[...]

Suppose you open Spotify, type “new worship music” into the search bar and begin scrolling away. You’d quickly notice there is no shortage of it available to the average listener. Of course, if you are the average listener, this may be the extent of your exposure to such material. But[...]

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[...]

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[...]

From 2010-2020, 38 worship songs appeared on the CCLI and PraiseCharts Top 25 list. 37 of them were co-written or popularized by a mere 5 megachurches.  If you have ever felt like most worship music sounds the same, it may be because the worship music you are most likely[...]