New degree is ‘gold standard’ for worship leadership

In fall 2020, the School of Church Music and Worship at The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary will launch a 59-hour master’s degree that will be the “gold standard” for worship leadership, says the school’s administration.

The Master of Music in Worship Leadership—designed to train and equip worship leaders who are biblically faithful, musically excellent, and devoted to serving the church—received a unanimous vote of approval by Southwestern Seminary’s board of trustees during its fall 2019 meeting. In addition, the new degree was recently approved by the National Association of Schools of Music, the accrediting body for higher education in music.

“What we set out to do was create the ‘gold standard’ for training in the ministry of music and worship leadership,” says Chuck T. Lewis, associate dean of the School of Church Music and Worship. Students who enroll in this competency-based degree program, Lewis says, will graduate with robust theological training, vigorous leadership coaching, and practical equipping in the area of music and worship leadership. “Our ultimate goal is to produce thoroughly trained leaders who are Word-saturated, ministry-minded, musically excellent, and church-serving,” he says.

“If I were a student seeking to be trained, the Master of Music in Worship Leadership is unquestionably the degree that I would want to pursue,” says Lewis. “Perhaps even more importantly, the faculty at Southwestern Seminary are the professors whom I would most trust to be the shapers of my mind and heart.”

Both Lewis and Joseph R. Crider, dean of the School of Church Music and Worship, say the faculty spent months diligently crafting a degree that will provide a unique training experience that can only be found at Southwestern Seminary.

“The significance of the new degree is that we didn’t go searching for the gold standard in worship leader training; we created it,” Crider says, explaining that the degree is specifically designed for those who take seriously their ministry callings.

“While our culture is becoming more and more ‘post-Christian’ all the time,” Crider says, “our pastors and worship leaders need to be trained well in the doctrines of the Christian faith in addition to having the skills necessary to navigate the ever-changing musical landscape in the local church. This degree is designed to arm our students with the necessary tools to be effective in the local church for Christ’s Kingdom and the glory of God.”