Worship Leader Mag wants to hear from YOU
a few months ago, some of us got into a discussion over at Live to Worship regarding our takes on Worship Leader Magazine and SongDiscovery. The executive editor found our critiques and asked for more input. Since our responses were not so positive, I was pleasantly surprised that she quickly invited further discussion:
We work hard to make sure the magazine are both must reads and must listens, but welcome any and all of your input to make it better for our readers and for those who are ready to give us a shot (or another shot). I would love to hear from any of you directly on specific feedback just so we can improve – our primary goal is to equip the churches we serve (approximately 45,000) so we want to be in touch!!!!
Here’s where you come in. Some of us in the original discussion are asking our readers to bring further input into the discussion.
What do you like about WL mag?
What do you think could be changed?
What do you find most valuable about the SongDiscovery service?
What would you like to see more often?
discussion also continuing: Live to Worship and Chris From Canada
Weird. I had someone from WL magazine comment on a article on my blog about Worship Musician magazine on in the last couple of days because we had couple of comments that weren’t very positive about WL magazine. They were soliciting the same input.
Steve: yeah. it sounds like they are interested in making some changes… its exciting to see what might come of this!
I have subscribed to Song Discovery for many a year. I used to get a song or two off each CD. But not any more, I’m lucky if I can get 1 song off two or three CDs. I realize that they are trying to serve many churches so there is a wide variety of music available, maybe that’s the problem. I really don’t need chorale selections. I don’t care for funky R & B numbers. etc. I realize there are churches who do like those, but I don’t. So by the time there is one or two of each song type on the CD, there’s not much to choose from for our desired song types.
The magazine is alright. I scan through it. Read about half of it. Not great. Not horrible.
I don’t know if this is cost effective or not, but maybe different versions of song discovery so churches can better select song styles that suit them.
Thanks for stopping by Mandy.
I forgot to add, I do think it’s an incredibly good thing that the producers of WL and SongDiscovery are listening to the community!
Bill: i think you might’ve hit on something – the variety of worship songs does reach a larger population of churches, but might not be the most beneficial for target groups. i, too, have experienced the same in not needing the chorale or ethnic blends… i think some might be TREMENDOUSLY blessed by these resources coming across their desk, but it doesn’t fit my current congregation.
on a totally different note: one feature i did enjoy in WL mag was their featured worship leader interview. i really enjoyed reading how other worship leaders go about their ministry.
My 2¢, I’ve been a subscriber for a long time, and I’ve always enjoyed reading and hearing what’s new this month. I can mainly think of what I would like to see LESS of, therefore providing more room for the other stuff already being produced.
I would like to see fewer “big name” artists on the CD. Like Leeland was on the CD last time around. These guys are going to get the big advertising push necessary to make us all aware of them anyway. Feature more of the “small time” signed artists, and independent artist.
Same thing with the magazine. Let CCM cover the “big time” worship leaders that everybody already knows about. If you want to interview them fine, but don’t forget that we’re interested in what else is going on in the churches around the country. I miss the worship leader interviews, which is part of the reason I started doing them on my blog. I want the coverage of the next big thing alongside that little small thing over there that no one but God has noticed yet.
Jeff: i thought about your WL wednesdays when i mentioned the interviews they had – wondering if that was why you started them. amen….
Hi, I am the one who has been reaching out from Worship Leader. Hope you don’t find that weird…but rather that I am the kind of worshiper and editor that cares greatly about what you as leaders want and need in the publication. Hey if you aren’t digging what we are doing, I would really like to know! I certainly understand we won’t please everyone, with 45,000 churches….you know what its like pleasing you congregations…so I am sure you understand my struggle as well. Our hope is that we would be providing quality content for all of our readers. You can always reach me direct: editor@wlmag.com…thanks so much for your insights….
Julie: i (we) don’t find it weird at all! i like the fact that you are asking for more input. thank you for stopping by… i hope you are finding the feedback we are churning to be helpful.
many blessings WL mag,
Mandy
::UPDATE::
i just sent julie an email re: why i really think us bloggers are not finding WL Mag to be as valuable as in the past – here’s a snippet:
any thoughts on this, y’all??
Honestly, I generally enjoy the magazine, but I can’t STAND all of the song-discovery discs I’ve ever heard. It’s not that I dislike the artists on the disc, it’s just that they seem to attempt to find the one song on the c.d. I would never dare lead and include that one. It absolutely baffles me to no end. I admit it, my tastes might be a little off-kilter at times, but generally – especially when it comes to corporate worship material – I like to think I have my finger to the pulse of “what’s next”, and I have – to date – never picked a song (at least not knowingly) from a SongDiscovery disc that I’ve heard. In fact, I’ve usually thrown them away after 2 or 3 spins. Sad, but true.
After that scathing review, I must add – I enjoy much about the magazine and am very glad they’re publishing it!
p.s. – I like the idea of a digital sd community.
shannon: thanks! and you like the digital community idea? cool!! i’m sure that will be of encouragement.
I’ll chime in here, since I already did over at CECWorship…
I just let my subscription expire. Why? Because I found the ‘resource’ not very ‘resourceful’. Over the course of the last year, there were maybe 3 articles that were either insightful, thought provoking, or challenging. There was more challenge to growth found in talking with other local worship leaders than reading an article from Brian Doerkson or Tim Hughes or Chris Tomlin. I just couldn’t find a good reason to renew my subscription.
With regards to the Song Discover CD, I always found the song choices a bit lame and, frankly, culturally irrelevant. Out of 6 CDs that I received, I found one useable song. Compare that to 4 CDs that I purchased last year that I took 7 useable songs from. There’s too much ‘churchiness’ (for want of a better word) and Christianese going on in most of the songs selected for the CD. And it’s a great shame, because there are literally thousands of worship leaders out there who are writing some very relevant and very response-provoking worship songs that the Song Discovery would do well to pay attention to. Unfortunately, it’s not a viable avenue for those singer-songwriters to pursue, as is evident in the fact that the same artists appear regularly on the CDs.
Thumbsdown from me, I’m afraid. But I’m looking for a replacement, if there are any suggestions.
James:
I saw your comment over at CECWorship Resources – thanks for taking the time to come over here as well.
blessings!
mandy
Julie, I don’t think it’s weird that you are reaching out. If more “ministry resource” producers would do the same, we might find ourselves actually using more of said ministry resources being produced. I’m all for talking about worship theory, but if I can’t put it into practice it’s of no real benefit to my or my congregation. It’s just another thing I maybe shouldn’t spend church moolah on, or spend my time reviewing.
I think the digital edition could be where you’ll find us coming back.
Mandy, I think you’re spot on with your email.
Jeff: thanks…. and i agree with you that i’m so thankful that Julie wants to hear from us!
Hi Mandy,
Great stuff … ya know, I”ve been a subscriber to Worship Leader Magazine for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a SongDISCovery subscriber since it was launched. I’ve been privileged to have one song I published “picked” for a SD issue, and I “bought” a spot on another issue – a $2500 mistake. (I guess that song, “You Are Faithful”, by Jason Wallis, didn’t connect, at least, based on CCLI usage).
I know Julie and the team are reaching out. They have great hearts of worship. Phil does a great job, and my participation in one of their recent “SongDISCovery” panels as a writer was educational, and well .. humbling at the same time.
I think it’s awesome they are reaching out .. I’ve not blogged about it, but maybe I’ll throw my voice in there, too … since so many of our readers are the same.
I launched TheWorshipCommunity.Com about 1 month prior to WL launching SongDISCovery community. The two sites don’t have the same objective, and I think are complimentary, but I’ve had no success in really trying to connect the two. It’s a struggle, because you feel that the “dialog and community” between worship leaders that is happening our our blogs and TheWorshipCommunity.Com would be an AWESOME asset to those worship leaders, yet you don’t want to come across as competing or trying to “steal” members or traffic at the same time .. but then again, that doesn’t make sense, as the SD community is more of a “myspace” type community where you post bulletins, upload songs, etc.
Even then, you’ve got mega names like Paul Baloche and Mark Roach, etc., who will always dominate those charts, etc.
Bottom line … I think it’s awesome they are reaching out. I don’t find a whole lot of content these days in the mag that hits home for me, or songs on SD .. but my favorites in the mag are the articles about how songs were written – the story behind the songs, etc.
They used to do this “local edition” thing, I was the South East USA worship leader for a year, but I only got “interviewed” once the whole year (I guess I should say we ALL only got one interview) … it was interesting, ’cause I liked hearing from every day worship leaders, what they were doing, etc., .. .kinda like our “video worship confessionals”, etc.
That’s my $.02 …
BTW – I am attending their National Worship Leader Conference in Austin, TX … couldn’t make it last year, but wonder if anyone else is going?
For the Kingdom,
Fred
Thanks Fred & Everyone on the Blog,
I welcome the insights and feedback. Though I don’t agree with everything, I can see and appreciate all of the varying viewpoints you all have. I think if SD was for everyone we would have 300K churches! Help me figure that out….what I have to take a way though isn’t that it’s “lame” but rather that it isn’t one size fits all, which we have a real challenge with. Serving 20,000 varying worship communities, and making a disc that has something that is biblically faithful, lyrically poetic, adaptable (stylistically), and has high production quality is not a small feat. We don’t ever exclude on style, in fact we look for diversity, its our greatest challenge…..I highly esteem what all of you are doing, and thank you for these comments! I will be reading them at our staff meeting next week. Oh, some will weep and maybe even wail, but at the end of the day, we will all glean a good thing or two and maybe next issue you’ll see you had a hand in making us better. After all isn’t that what it is all about?
Blessings to you all!
Julie – just who is SongDiscovery for? I had personally come to the conclusion that you all must have been limited by the record companies as to what songs you could consider, that way the worship artists’ best singles would not be available on your compilations, which would thus boost their record sales. Am I completely wrong on this? Do you get a great deal of ‘good press’ and praise for your song selections, on a consistent basis? How many of the songs picked for SD discs end up on the CCLI top 10, or at least close? That would be a pretty good indicator that’s you all are ‘hitting the mark’ on the broadest group of worship leaders, and the my prior response above was totally off-base. I really appreciate that you are engaging us directly here, though! THANK YOU.
my thoughts http://cecworship.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/worship-leader-magazine-part-2-my-thoughts/
Shannon,
Thanks for the question. Approximately 60% of the songs that end up on Song Discovery are from Independent Artists, worship leaders, songwriters not signed by labels – the rest from labels. The beauty of Song Discovery is that everyone has an equal chance to get onto the disc there is absolutely no preference given to anyone. We go into the board with 30 songs we come out with 12-14. Basically, our SD editor, Phil is an amazing songwriter (quite accomplished) and worship leader, and he sifts through about 1000 songs every listening cycle listening to our posted criteria. From that he presents 30 to our board (or so) and from there, we get our CD. And then we do it again 6 weeks later. Certainly people who get on the disc see a boost in CCLI ratings, our goal is to provide “newsongs” to church leaders in a way that they can incorporate them into their very next service. I hope that helps.
Julie:
thank you for stopping back by again. and for the interaction you are offering at the worship community forum as well. its been great to share some thoughts with you, as well as hear back from you. this has been a helpful discussion.
i appreciate your work.
many many blessings to you and the magazine staff!
Hey Mandy,
I would like to see recap for services. Such as what the worship leader felt could’ve been different, etc.