Churches Face a Shortage of Worship Leaders
Christianity Today
November 3, 2026
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When Anna Dunsbergen enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) as a freshman, she planned to become a teacher, not a worship leader. In high school, she had sung in both school and church choirs, and had some basic guitar skills, but didn’t aspire to serve as a church musician. Her mom had led worship part-time at her church, but Dunsbergen had never considered it as a career path.
During her first year on campus, Dunsbergen 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 give it a try. After three years, she felt called to full-time ministry.
“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.”
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Now in West Lafayette, Indiana, Dunsbergen, now 25 years old, is currently in her second year as the worship leader at The Chapel, which was recently planted by the Salt Network. In three years, the church has grown into a 1,000-person congregation, adding pressure to the job, but Dunsbergen is confident that she’s in the right place.
A growing shortage of worship leaders has researchers, educators, and pastors wondering if it’s time to rethink music ministry recruitment and preparation. A recent study conducted by SBC Worship found that 70 percent of worship leaders who are nearing retirement age have not identified a successor. It also projected that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States) will need 20,000 new worship leaders by 2040.
Many worship leaders have taken the relational and experiential route to music ministry that Dunsbergen did. Now some are wondering if structured mentorship and residencies are the future of worship leader training, while others are looking for ways to strengthen existing programs at Christian colleges and universities.
Will Bishop, one of the lead researchers on the SBC Worship study and chair of the worship studies department at William Carey University, said that he gets multiple calls every 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 says he wants to see strong musical and theological education for future worship leaders at Christian colleges and universities, but he’s convinced that the training of the next generation of worship leaders needs to start in local churches.
Historically, church musicians have always developed their skills in church. Prior to the 20th century, music education was available either in the church or from private tutors who catered to wealthy families. Today, most musically inclined kids who take an interest in the church worship band sign up for private lessons or teach themselves basic skills via YouTube.
Across denominations, there is no standard credential 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 like The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Liberty University have master’s-level programs in worship studies or leadership that require coursework in theology and biblical studies, but these advanced programs are designed for students who already have some musical training and experience in ministry.
Candeo Church is one place reviving church-led music training by 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,” said Shaffer. “Sending costs something.”
But at Candeo, Shaffer started a worship leader training pipeline. First he built an internship program for college students and then a postgraduate residency to employ worship leaders with the intent of sending them to another church after two years. Candeo’s worship leader residents take seminary courses, but are not required to complete a formal ministry degree.
Freshmen like Dunsbergen join the church’s college ministry and are invited to audition for the worship team. Accepted students then take a six-week “worship intensive” course that covers setlist planning, theology of worship, speaking, and on-stage leadership. The course is open to anyone in the church, so high school students and other congregants can enroll too. After college students have taken the course, they can apply to become interns.
Shaffer pointed out that many churches rely on “discovery” rather than education for worship leader and musician recruitment. But musical skills can be taught, he insisted. There’s no need to wait for a trained musician to volunteer.
“It seems like there are fewer people getting into music when they are young, but we’re seeing an uptick in interest in getting musical training through the church,” he said.
Shaffer wants the church to start looking for ways to get middle schoolers involved in music ministry; he wants even the greenest musicians to have opportunities to lead.
“You’re never going to get there if you don’t have a place to fail,” Shaffer said. He says he’ll put a budding electric guitar player on stage, knowing that the audio engineer may have to mute them in the mix if they’re struggling.
Shaffer has the advantage of working for a church in a college town, where it’s relatively easy to find people with some musical training. But his roster does have some quirks. He currently has more cello and violin players than electric guitarists because the local high school and university have string programs, and a John Deere engineer who plays cello and attends his church is willing to create string arrangements.
Well-resourced churches like Candeo, with their abundance of musicians and staff support, should be serving as resource hubs, Shaffer said. Bishop, the researcher from William Carey, agreed.
“What if we asked bigger churches to consider what they can offer smaller churches?” he said. “One of the ways these big, thriving churches can serve rural and smaller congregations is by becoming training centers.”
Pipelines and training programs with a narrow focus can limit worship leaders’ options if they choose to leave ministry. The average tenure of a worship leader at a church is less than three years.
Last year, the North Carolina–based megachurch Elevation, famous for its worship music, announced the launch of Elevation College, a degree-granting institution that trains students in ministry at its Charlotte campus. It offers degree tracks in worship, production, digital media and design, and ministry, and one of the college’s selling points is access to Elevation’s resources and staff.
Casey Corum, a producer, songwriter, and instructor at Biola University, told CT in March that programs like those offered at Elevation College cannot provide the kind of rigorous music education a student would receive in a traditional music program, which would generally include theory, history, and ensemble course requirements. In the case of Elevation College, church-specific musical training is limited to contemporary worship music.
“Church is a great place to get discipleship and leadership training, but it’s not always a great place to improve musicianship,” Corum said.
He also noted that these in-house programs can unintentionally restrict students’ views of the church. Unlike a music program at a Christian liberal arts college that draws students from different regions and faith traditions, a church internship or practicum provides an education within a particular spiritual community.
These days, Dunsbergen is managing her own worship interns and working on recruiting a resident. She hopes to replicate the model from Candeo and continue training and sending worship leaders to other church plants. Currently, she has a strong cohort of musicians in her worship band, including an aerospace engineering student who plays multiple instruments.
She’s teaching musicians to use the Nashville number system and expand chord voicings on the keyboard. One current challenge is teaching vocalists to sing parts. She wishes she could offer an ear-training course for singers, but she’s short on time these days.
“I’m amazed by the amount of interest we have from Purdue students,” Dunsbergen said. “Our church has grown so quickly, and everyone is running pretty hard. But it’s so exciting to get to grow something new.”
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