Some megachurches have been hiring rock star worship leaders (henceforth referred to in this article as RSWLs) and are finding out they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.

A megachurch is a unique breeding ground for a RSWL—he probably couldn’t survive in a smaller ministry. A typical church music director is a busy guy or girl who schedules volunteers, conducts rehearsals, writes charts, arranges music and plans Christmas and Easter events. Some megachurch RSWLs surprisingly can’t even read music, let alone create a chord chart.

So why are they hired? They often don’t have musical training or organization skills, but they look and sound good on stage. This will blow some of your minds—I know of one RSWL who makes about 100K a year by going to a weekly staff meeting and picking out six songs for the praise set. That’s it. He has a full staff who does his work for him—making charts and tracks, scheduling volunteers and even leading rehearsals. This type of RSWL could only exist at a megachurch—he’d be helpless if he had to do everything himself in a smaller ministry.

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