The Worship Design Project (WDP) is a survey of music and worship ministries of the highest attended churches (top 500) in the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States conducted in the spring, summer, and fall of 2014. The WDP sought to discern how ministers of music select and sequence the elements of their services of worship.

Believing that every choice made by a worship pastor is governed by a guiding philosophy, a held value, or a prime objective, the aim of this research was to discover the specific influencers that affect worship design and subsequent practice in Southern Baptist churches. More specifically, the purpose of this quantitative research was to examine (1) how worship pastors select the elements to be included in their services of worship and (2) how worship pastors sequentially order the elements once they have been selected. This research also sought to discern what role, if any, the specific concepts of transcendence and immanence play in how worship pastors select and order liturgical elements (e.g., songs, prayers, Scripture readings, etc.) included in a worship service.

All data collected through the WDP research instrument was reported in a PhD dissertation entitled “Far and Near: Christian Worship of the Transcendent and Immanent God of Wonders.”  The complete dissertation is available for viewing here.

With grateful appreciation by the researcher, this website was created in response to the many worship pastors who participated in the WDP who asked to know the results.