Editor’s note: The 2026 Southern Baptist Church Music Conference is April 19-22 at First Baptist Jacksonville, Fla. More information is available here.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP) – Four years ago, the Baptist Church Music Conference had about 80 attendees. It seemed like no one knew it existed. It felt like it was dying.
At least, that’s the feeling Scott Connell had when he attended his first one in 2022.
“Even though I went to a Southern Baptist seminary and had been a Southern Baptist musician for almost all my adult life, I didn’t know the organization existed until 2021 or ‘22,” Connell said.
When he did learn about it, he was impressed with the way the organization incorporated all aspects of music in Southern Baptist life – not just local church musicians, but also educators and denominational workers.
“This is a brilliant organization,” Connell thought. “Why have I not heard of it?”
Connell, who is worship pastor at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., and a church music professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, decided he wanted to help save the conference.
When the 2023 conference was canceled due to lack of interest, he and a few others met anyway to devise a plan.
“We seriously considered for a couple of days whether [the conference] had served its usefulness and it was time to end it,” Connell said. “We believed the Lord would have us do three things that came out of that meeting.”
Their first order of business was putting “Southern” back in the name.
When the conference began in 1957, it was called the “Southern Baptist Church Music Conference,” and it was held in conjunction with the SBC Annual Meeting. After the SBC’s Conservative Resurgence, the “Southern” was dropped. Connell and others believed that change was counterproductive, so they changed it back.
“If you are more clear about who you are, there are more people who will give you some attention,” he said.
The second change was updating the music featured at the event, which was very traditional.
“It was great music, but it wasn’t accessible to the common Southern Baptist church,” Connell said. The team wanted to make music more relevant to what churches are doing on Sunday mornings.
Their third decision was to give themselves a deadline.
“We determined we would give it one year of good faith effort before the Lord,” Connell said. “And if He blessed it, then praise be to God, the organization was back on track. And if He did not, then we would just determine that He had entrusted us with the stewardship of determining that it had served its purpose and it was time to close it.”
The next year’s conference in Nashville in 2024 brought about 200 people.
“It was just clear the Lord had breathed life back into the organization,” Connell said. “We could see, OK, there’s a purpose for this and there’s an audience for it.” The 2025 meeting in Chattanooga saw an even larger crowd.
At the Nashville event in 2024, Connell was selected to be the president for the 2026 event. He’s had two years to plan this year’s conference, which will be at his own church, First Baptist Jacksonville.
He and a team have worked to plan “the most quality conference we can possibly plan,” Connell said.
Confirmed artists include Keith and Kristen Getty, Shane & Shane, Travis Cottrell, Matt Boswell, Laura Story, Bob Kauflin and others. Registration has already surpassed the highest attendance the conference has seen in decades.
“We knew we could produce a quality support system here in Jacksonville,” Connell said. “What we did not know that God was going to do is infuse it with so much attention from these other artists and speakers and organizations that are just absolutely intrigued with what’s happening with SBCMC.”
That interest includes participation from SBC Worship, PraiseCharts and other music providers. And of course, Lifeway Worship, which is undergoing a resurgence of its own. Connell is optimistic about what a new direction for Lifeway Worship will mean for Southern Baptists and calls Kirk Kirkland, its new director, a “favorite son” of FBC Jacksonville, where Kirkland grew up.
All of the pieces coming together feels like a new beginning for the SBCMC.
“It’s impossible to ignore it. There is a sense of a fellowship that exists in our organization that’s a rich reservoir of just people connecting with one another,” Connell said.
“The events, the concerts will be great. The teaching sessions will be great. There’ll be a lot of particular, customized instruction to you.”
That includes specialized tracks for worship leadership, children’s music, songwriting, women in ministry and more.
But perhaps the most important part of the conference is not something anyone can plan.
“There’s all these customized channels of instruction and training,” Connell said, “but what is the common denominator in all of it is it’s that table setting of the family gathering together, the family of Southern Baptist church musicians coming together for three days in April to be encouraged, to be renewed, to reacquaint oneself with old friends and to make new ones.”
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