Key points:
- The Fusion 2026 Worship Music Conference brought 200 musicians, worship leaders and pastors to Nashville.
- The conference explored the tension between those who prefer traditional worship services and others who might be attracted to more modern styles.
- Presenters talked about options that might bring younger people back to church.
Before COVID hit in 2020, Bozeman United Methodist Church in Montana had a large youth ministry.
“It dwindled down a lot and older folks are always saying, ‘I miss seeing kids in worship and having this big robust youth program,’” said Rin Stearns, the youth pastor at Bozeman.
“They’re always excited when I have any sort of success or growth to share in my ministry and they’re extremely financially supportive as well,” they added.
Stearns and wife Judah Seger (who plays bass in the church band) came to the Fusion 2026 Worship Music Conference at Belmont United Methodist Church to see if music might offer part of the answer to attracting more youth.
The conference, presented by the United Methodist Discipleship Ministries in partnership with the Institute for Modern Worship, was held Sept. 24-26. It brought 200 music and worship leaders together to attend workshops on songwriting, pastor and worship leader relations, worship ethics, Wesleyan theology, creative liturgy writing, copyrights and more. There was even a workshop on artificial intelligence.
The tension between traditional and modern worship styles was a recurring source of conversation.
Traditional denotes the classic hymns that have been part of many Protestants’ worship for generations, along with structured, formal and predictable worship. Modern services use more recent songs, many of them popular sing-a-longs from the 1990s worship song boom. The worship style is usually less formal. It sacrifices some of the links to the past to connect with today’s styles and younger generations.
At many churches, the difference between traditional and modern worship is characterized by whether the congregation is singing along to an organ or a praise band.
“We encounter this great divide in the church,” said the Rev. Jackson Henry, pastor of worship and music at First United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He spoke at one of the three plenary meetings.
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“Traditional versus modern, us and them. … This is what we know as a not helpful and often harmful dynamic.”
Instead, the consensus was that church leaders should be adaptive, willing to try different combinations of traditional and modern. That can mean offering both worship styles at separate services or carefully introducing some modern elements to traditional services.
“(Modern service is) something to bring the young people in,” said Kiersten Rose, director of operations and consultant for the Institute for Modern Worship, a consulting firm that works to provide support, continuing education and community among people called to worship ministry.
“It’s not so much about a musical style, even though everybody’s tried to make it about a musical style,” she added. “It’s more about what is our context of our church and what is the context of our community?”
Rose’s colleague at the institute said that answering two questions can lead a church leader to the context of their community.
“What do you have available in your hand?” said Jeremy Hearn, executive director and co-founder of the Institute for Modern Worship, “and what are you limited by?”
At St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Brandon, Mississippi, the goal is “a healthy mix of worship elements,” said the Rev. Jon Kaufman, senior pastor, in an interview.
“We have a couple of traditional services and a contemporary service,” Kaufman said. “I believe in all of our services we try to include elements of worship that are common to both — prayers, sacraments, even music.”
Many once-new additions to United Methodist worship are part of “traditional” services today, Kaufman said.
John Wesley, the father of Methodism, provided an outline of Sunday worship that was quickly discarded in favor of things that worked better in the American context, Kaufman said.
“It evolved to include organs and choirs,” he said. “There was some pushback about that when it happened, when choirs started being the dominant sound of music in churches.
“So worship has evolved in The United Methodist Church here in America since the very beginning.”
Vincent Hale, worship leader at East Ridge United Methodist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said a workshop on the relationship between pastors and worship leaders was valuable for him.
“(The pastor) does the sermons, and I put the songs in,” Hale said. “It’s kind of siloed, and I think there could be more collaboration. … I think we’re both a little bit on the procrastination end. … So, how can we work to ensure that we’re setting each other up for success?”
Stearns, the youth pastor from Montana, said a workshop they attended inspired them to reconsider the order of services at their church.
“For example, our church jumps right into announcements at 9:30 a.m. sharp,” they said. “If you come in even just a couple minutes late, you’re coming into someone talking with everyone, trying to listen to what they have to say.
“I can only imagine that somebody with a toddler who might make a little bit of noise as they’re settling in would be scared because they don’t want to disrupt the service.”
So, Stearns is thinking about proposing that worship start with a song instead of talking.
“It should be pretty easy for us to shift gears,” they said. “Let’s do a song first, so that people are coming into noise, even if they’re getting there like right on time.”
Insights like that are what the Fusion 2026 Worship Music Conference was all about, said the Rev. Jeff Campbell, the top executive of Discipleship Ministries.
“Isn’t that what we’re trying to get to as worship leaders?” Campbell said. “Some form of experience … so that people can experience God and the grace of Jesus Christ.
“Isn’t that what we’re all trying desperately to get to with all the hymnals and all the things at our elbows every week? … I pray that you find what you are looking for to support this grueling but important work.”
Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or newsdesk@umnews.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digests.
