Worship leader and artist Elias Dummer discusses the state of contemporary worship music with the hosts of the ChurchFront podcast.

Dummer provides insight into the growing number of worship songs being created and promoted, suggesting that worship leaders thoughtfully curate a catalog of 40-60 songs for their church rather than continually introducing new songs week to week. He emphasizes the importance of repetition over time for congregational learning and advocates for contextualizing worship music to each church’s unique local culture.

Next, the video covers Dummer’s perspective on the worship music industry, including the outsized influence of major players like Hillsong and Bethel. He advocates having transparent conversations about the business side of worship music to serve congregations well. Dummer also discusses the time pressures worship leaders face and how production tools promising time-savings affect contextualization and congregational formation.

He then shares about the ongoing work of Worship Leader Research to study industry trends and how worship leaders engage with them. He mentions plans to continue gathering data and providing resources to inform worship leaders. Dummer also discusses his work as a musician, entrepreneur, and marketing professional.