Churches Face Worship Leader Shortage as Training Shifts to Local Congregations

Anna Dunsbergen enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) as a freshman planning to become a teacher, not a worship leader. She had sung in school and church choirs and had some basic guitar skills, but she had not aspired to serve as a church musician. Her mother had led worship part-time at their church, though Dunsbergen had never considered that a career path.

During her first year on campus, she joined the Salt Company college ministry and its affiliated church, Candeo. When a leader invited her to join the internship program and learn to lead worship, she decided to try it. After three years, she felt called to full-time ministry, a step she described with some uncertainty about her earlier plans. “I still love education, but I don’t know if I’ll ever have a teaching job,” Dunsbergen said. “I definitely see myself doing this for a long time.” Her three years of internship marked the shift from classroom plans to full-time work in the church (Colossians 3:23).

Now 25, Dunsbergen is in her second year as worship leader at The Chapel in West Lafayette, Indiana, a church recently planted by the Salt Network. The congregation has grown to 1,000 people in three years, which adds pressure to the role, though Dunsbergen said she is confident she is in the right place.

The article describes a growing shortage of worship leaders that has led researchers, educators, and pastors to ask whether music ministry recruitment and preparation need to be rethought. A recent study by SBC Worship found that 70 percent of worship leaders nearing retirement age have not identified a successor. It projected that the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, will need 20,000 new worship leaders by 2040.

Will Bishop, a lead researcher on the SBC Worship study and chair of the worship studies department at William Carey University, said he receives multiple calls each week from churches looking for singers, pianists, and guitar players. “We want to sound the alarm and put the word out,” Bishop said. “So much has changed in the past 50 years. People in the pews have gotten busier, adult and children’s choirs have disappeared. The ways we used to identify the next generation of church musicians aren’t there anymore.” Bishop wants strong musical and theological education for future worship leaders at Christian colleges and universities, but he is convinced that training must also start in local churches.

According to the article, church musicians have historically developed their skills in church. Before the 20th century, music education was available either in the church or from private tutors who served wealthy families. Today, most musically inclined young people who take an interest in the church worship band sign up for private lessons or teach themselves basic skills through YouTube.

Across denominations, no standard credential is required for worship leaders or worship pastors. The SBC survey found that 68 percent of worship leaders do not have a degree in music, worship, or ministry. Institutions including The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Liberty University offer master’s-level programs in worship studies or leadership that require coursework in theology and biblical studies, but these programs are designed for students who already have some musical training and ministry experience.

Candeo Church is one place reviving church-led music training, building its own development program for worship leaders. Dalton Shaffer, Candeo’s director of music ministry, told CT that his goal when he joined the church’s staff was to establish a new model for developing worship leaders and sending them to new church plants. Shaffer previously served as a worship leader at a multisite megachurch in Arkansas. When he proposed starting a worship leader residency and training program, he recalled, some staff dismissed the idea.

“Nobody wanted to train a worship leader and then send them somewhere else,” Shaffer said. “Sending costs something.”

Source: Read the original report