The short version
I have led worship long enough to know the set list is the easy part. I have taught long enough to know most people never get told why any of it works. So I research it, write it down, and then build the thing that runs it. I teach at Liberty and Southeastern, lead worship at a church in Franklin, and did my doctoral work on how people who attend church online experience pastoral care through worship.
The five titles up there are not five jobs. They are the same one, which is mostly trying to make the invisible parts of this work visible, and then making them repeatable enough that somebody else can pick them up.
Writing and podcast
01 / WritingThe Substack
Essays for the people who lead the room. 02 / PodcastThe Podcast
Formation to Transformation. New episodes every weekday and Sunday.Projects and resources
Burnout Self-Check
Four minutes on where the tank actually is. It will probably tell you something you already know.Free TCC Network
Hop in with almost 2k other worship and creatives and join the convoMy Dissertation
The online member's experience of pastoral care through worshipAnkyr
Software to help people stay connected to their people (I use it too)The Shop
Shirts with jokes on them that mostly only worship people get.Professor
I teach at Southeastern University and Liberty University. My teaching spans worship leadership, ministry foundations, songwriting, music theory, and applied music, alongside graduate research supervision. I began teaching at Southeastern in 2016.
Doctoral research
The Online Member’s Experience of Pastoral Care Through Worship
Ryan Michael Loche · PhD dissertation, Liberty University · 2023
Journal research
Digital Discipleship: Exploring Lifestyle Worship and Spiritual Formation in Online Education
I coauthored this manuscript with Hanna Byrd, Brenda L. Widger, Zach Jones and Jerry Leonard Newman. It was accepted by the Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning on January 21, 2026.
Journal website
Conference research
The Impact of Worship Within the Online Classroom
2026 Conference on Teaching Excellence, Liberty University · I am listed as a co-presenter with Hanna Byrd, Brenda Widger, Zach Jones and Jerry Newman.
Speaking
I speak to worship teams, church staff, and volunteers. Conferences, team retreats, and training days.
Email about a dateMore Than Singing
The better you help your church understand that worship is more than singing, the better they will sing.
Lead From a Full Tank
You cannot pour out of a tank nobody ever fills. Starts with the leader, moves to the team, then the room.
Upcoming speaking
Worship Innovators Conference
October 12 and 13, 2026. Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, Illinois.
ReFuel 2027
January 15 and 16, 2027. Bethel University, Mishawaka, Indiana.
Southeast Christian Church
February 2, 2027. Louisville, Kentucky. Worship-team visit on formation.
FILO 2027
May 4 and 5, 2027. Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Illinois.
Burnout Self-Check · Newsletter
Selected past appearances
Cultivate 2026
Crossroads Church, Douglasville, Georgia. August 1, 2026.
I have served as a conference speaker, track leader and host at gatherings including:
- FILO — Chicago, Illinois
- Sweetwater Worship Connect — Fort Wayne, Indiana
- Joysongs — Whippany, New Jersey
- The Church Collective West Coast — Modesto, California
- The Church Collective East Coast — Virginia Beach, Virginia
I am a worship pastor at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and a professor at Liberty University and Southeastern University. I founded The Church Collective, a 501(c)(3) resourcing worship leaders and creatives, in 2013, and host the Formation to Transformation podcast. My doctoral research examined how people who attend church online experience pastoral care through worship.
On YouTube
Featured
The Stories Behind the Songs We Sing
What you teach your church to sing stays with them all week.
All episodes ↗
Elsewhere
Follow alongWork with me
Social · SEO · Content systemsI also build the machinery that carries other people's work.
Independent client work: social, SEO, and content systems. Life coaching and church leadership audits. Ankyr is software for staying connected to your audience.
Content systems
The pipeline from one recording to everything downstream.
Social management
Planning, production, scheduling, and an honest read on what actually worked.
Search
Cold-start sites from nothing, and getting found in the AI answers people now use instead of a results page.
AI workflow implementation
Practical implementation. The boring automations, the drafting help, the systems underneath. People spend less time on the parts they dread and more on the work they got into this for.
And I help teams put AI to work without losing the human part.
Email about a project if you are looking to amplify your message and get connected with your people.
Across all of it:
24M
Views and listens across the accounts I run, last 12 months
1.29M
Google search impressions, last 12 months
290K
Followers across those accounts
380+
Podcast episodes across three shows