Registration opens Monday for 2026 Worship & Music Conference
‘Who’ll Be a Witness’ is theme of 57th Presbyterian Association of Musicians annual gathering at Montreat
LOUISVILLE — When the Presbyterian Association of Musicians 2026 Worship & Music Conference opens at Montreat Conference Center on Sunday evening, June 21, it will mark the 57th year of the largest annual — not to mention the largest intergenerational — gathering of Presbyterians in the denomination.
Registration opens Monday for the two identical weeks of the popular conference, June 21-26 and June 28-July 3, 2026, titled “Who’ll Be a Witness.”
Designed for participants of all denominations from ages 3rd grade through adult, Worship & Music offers a full schedule of programming centered on weekly worship — preaching, liturgy writing, choir, handbells, ukulele, and liturgical art. Worship is held daily and classes and activities for adults, senior highs, middle schoolers and children are offered throughout the day Monday through Friday. The evening schedule offers everything from evening prayer to youth activities and also features a talent show, a comic operetta, a hymn festival, a chamber concert and a closing concert.
“As a previous attendee and church worship planner, I believe PAM's Worship & Music Conference is one of the best worship planning resources for the church today,” says Kelly Abraham, executive director of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. “What I learned and experienced in one week provided me with ideas to infuse into my ministry throughout the year. The intentional and collaborative effort spent in planning and leading the conference’s six worship services and complementary offerings year after year is second to none. If you plan or lead any aspect of worship, this conference is for you.”
The 2026 conference theme is drawn from a well-known line in the African American spiritual, “Who’ll be a witness for my Lord?” Through Spirit-led worship, learning, music-making, and recreation, conference participants will be invited to probe their own answers to the call to witness to the grace and love of God through Jesus Christ.
“’Who’ll be a witness?’ — the question is in truth a command, a provocation,” says the Rev. Dr. Brian Blount, president emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina), who will be the 2026 conference preacher. “It seeks not a reply but a response. It demands not a comeback but a commitment. Africans enslaved for two and a half centuries in the United States of America put the mandate to music in arguably one of the most recognizable of the Negro spirituals. Who’ll be a witness? In our conference worship services together, in music, in liturgy, in prayer, in the proclaimed word, we shall echo the question and contemplate our response.”
In addition to Blount, among the distinguished faculty for the 2026 Worship & Music Conference are:
- Rev. Katie Owen Aumann, liturgist; pastor and head of staff, Morningside Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia.
- Dr. Mary Louise (Mel) Bringle, Routley Lecturer; Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and coordinator of Integrated Studies Major, Brevard College, North Carolina.
- Jimmy Hoke, Adult Bible Study Leader; creator of "Queering the Lectionary," an online project that helps preachers and congregational leaders bring trans and queer perspectives into worship.
- David V. Hufford and Ariel Merivil, co-service musicians; Hufford isoOrganist at First Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Merivil is minister of music to Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.
Complete information about conference costs and applicable discounts — including early-bird pricing — is available on the registration page of the conference website. PAM also has scholarship funds available for the Worship & Music Conference and prioritizes individuals with financial need. Scholarship funds are available for individuals from small congregations, college students, seminary students, and applicants from underrepresented populations.
Worship & Music leadership promises a rich conference experience for everyone, whether a member, lay leader, teaching elder, musician, artist, or first-call worship leader, with the assurance that all participants will return home refreshed, renewed, and filled with new ideas to infuse into their congregations’ worship services.
“’What does worship have to do with being a witness?,’ asks the Rev. Katie Owen Aumann, 2026 conference liturgist. “If we think of liturgy as ‘the work of the people,’ then what we do in worship points to God and bears witness to God’s promises and salvation story in our words, our songs, and our actions. It is a way that we join the cloud of witnesses throughout the biblical narrative pointing to God’s story of hope, liberation, justice, and love. Witnessing, however, comes in many forms, and there is more than one way to be a witness to Christ. Throughout the week, you will have the opportunity to bear witness in art and music, with your voice and with your silence.”
Learn more about the Presbyterian Association of Musicians Worship & Music Conference here.
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