ASSOCIATION NEWS
FACES OF MUSIC MINISTRY
New survey sheds light on pastoral music across the nation
In November 2019, NPM launched a survey aimed at collecting data to measure the landscape of music ministry within the 17,000+ Roman Catholic parishes in the United States.
More than 2,800 responses were gathered from English- and Spanish-speaking musicians, regardless of affiliation with NPM.*
Te results represent the broadest view to date of parish pastoral music in the U.S. Tey also underscore the evolving needs and challenges of those committed to this rich and demanding vocation.
Te survey is a critical input to the first phase of NPM 2.0—Assessment. NPM members and leaders were encouraged to share thoughts, ideas and concerns about the future of NPM through several different avenues during late summer and fall of 2019. In addition, the survey of NPM members in summer 2018 provided meaningful feedback for consideration.
Still, the NPM Board wanted more statistical data that would represent input from both members and non-members. To gain that broader view, NPM called on the assistance of the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC), GIA Publications, OCP, World Library Publications (WLP) and WorshipNOW to help distribute the survey.
FOR MORE ON THE SURVEY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS: Watch the recorded webcast of the March 23-24 Faces of Music Ministry discussion at
npm.org.
10 Insights from the survey
• 61% of the respondents reported they were from stand-alone parishes with their own pastor
• 29% of respondents have a parish with a Catholic school
• Just over half (53%) are from parishes with 1,000 members or less
• 28% of respondents celebrate masses in Spanish • Nine out of 10 reported having an adult choir
• Nearly half have children’s choirs, 25% have an ensemble or choir in another language and 25% have a youth/teen choir
• 44% of respondents have a full-time paid music director, while one in four have multiple unpaid volunteer music leaders
• Nearly 15% of pastors have a direct hand in what music is chosen for liturgy
• 35% of respondents have a leader with an advanced degree in music and 14% have a leader with an advanced degree in liturgy
• While27%of respondents declare they receive no training, 63% say that the music director offers onsite training
• Just over half of respondents (51%) are NPM members
• Nearly 40% of respondents attend conferences or national programs
• More than 45% of respondents are not locally networked
• Nearly 40% of respondents identify liturgical music publishers as a primary source of professional information
• Liturgical planning, recruitment and developing assembly singing are the respondent’shighest ranked needs
*NPM collected 2,774 individual responses from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as all 177 Roman Rite (arch)dioceses.
Te pool of responses was culled to remove data from non-Catholic communities and respondents outside the United States, producing a final number of just over 2,500 responses used for analysis.*
According to data from 2018, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University reports 17,007 parish communities in the United States. Given this population size, the survey needed a sample size of 2,105 responses to be considered “statistically significant.” Given the number of responses (n=2,575), the survey meets this requirement and carries a 95% confidence level of a ±/- 2% margin of error.
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