We study the limiting behavior of minimizing p-harmonic maps from a bounded 3d Lipschitz domain O to a compact connected Riemannian manifold without boundary and with finite fundamental group as p goes to 2 from below. We prove that there exists a closed set S of finite length such that minimizing p-harmonic maps converge to a locally minimizing harmonic map in O\S. We prove that locally inside O the singular set S is a finite union of straight line segments, and it minimizes the mass in the appropriate class of admissible chains. Furthermore, we establish local and global estimates for the limiting singular harmonic map. Under additional assumptions, we prove that globally in the closure of O the set S is a finite union of straight line segments, and it minimizes the mass in the appropriate class of admissible chains, which is defined by a given boundary datum and O. This is a joint work with Jean Van Schaftingen and Benoît Van Vaerenbergh.