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The Future of Australian Worship Music

Australian christian music news

June 2025

Introducing the OZ 5 TOP TUNES chart!

Compiled each month by Today's Christian Music (TCM) who have managed Australia’s official Weekly Top 30 Countdown for over 25 years, this new chart published by Australian Christian Records exclusively tracks songs from Australian Christian artists in the same way.

Let’s pray this helps bring more attention to our local artists and give them something extra to aspire towards!

OZ 5 chart:
1. Left The 99 – Youth Alive ft. Ethan Beer

2. Weight Of The World – Kate Westwood

3. Did Ya Don’t Worry – Justin Michael

4. Pass Me The Mic – Victor Claye

5. Where He Goes - Youth Alive ft. Ethan Beer

*Compiled by TCM based on Australian Christian radio airplay from the preceding month.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tehillal Worship Festival, July 4-6 (Sunshine Coast)
Danny Gokey & Svrcina: The Sound of Heaven Australia Tour, July 16-25 (QLD, NSW, VIC & ACT)

THE FUTURE OF WORSHIP MUSIC IN AUSTRALIA: UNITY, HUMILITY AND A NATIONAL CALLING

Aaron Duff, June 4, 2025

Australia has long been seen as a global leader in worship music, but what does that even mean; and how will Australian worship music look like in the future? We speak to some key players in Australia’s worship music scene to find answers.

Reminiscing of Sunday services in the 90’s brings back feels of stonewashed denim, hypercolour t-shirts, scrunchies and hair gel, but before you could get to the meet-and-greet intermission and obligatory, self-made instant coffee in a styrofoam cup, the church worship band would help the congregation belt out songs like the ‘The Power of Your Love’ and ‘Shout to the Lord’ authored by some of Australia’s first well-known worship leaders in Geoff Bullock and Darlene Zschech respectively.

As well as ‘modernising’ the Sunday worship service with electronic keyboards, drum kits and guitars, Hillsong pioneered the taking home of praise and worship music by selling cassettes and cds at church bookstores that would find their way into kitchens, sheds and cars all around Australia.

Fast forward to today and Australia remains at the forefront of worship with literally countless church bands around Australia releasing music since then. Now a mainstay on the global worship scene, Hillsong has continued to create new praise and worship music for multiple demographics with its release catalogue now reaching 26 languages other than English (at last count).

But where-to for Australian worship music from here? And why does it matter?

Firstly, it’s interesting to make a comparison to Australia’s Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) scene, which hit a peak around 2010 and has since, despite some green shoots, for the most part gone backward.

Defining CCM as music made to highlight our faith to others and support Christians in their everyday walk (as opposed to worship music which is made with God as the intended primary listener); Australia no longer has the CCM festivals, artists and bands and youth group circuits that it once had.

This is despite thousands of worship leaders, singers and instrumentalists being on stage every Sunday. Indeed, recent research by guitar brand Fender found that around one third of all instruments sold are used for Christian praise and worship.

Partly, the reason for this decline is because today’s pop music has moved on from rock bands (when was the last time a band reached number one on Billboard?), and so unlike the 90’s and 00’s, the Sunday church band doesn’t cut it anymore.

Yet at the same time, we see worship leaders featured in Australian Idol or The Voice Australia every season, notably with Bella Taylor Smith and Tarryn Stokes winning in 2021 and 2023 respectively, following in the well-known footsteps of luminaries Dami Im and Guy Sebastian.

Australians are blessed to be home to an ever-increasing variety of worship music genres with a new, must-listen being Hillsong LoFi that launched in February this year.

Joshua Halls founded the School of Worship in 2019 to 'Encourage, Connect and Equip' local worshippers.

To understand more about the state of worship leading here in Australia, I spoke with Josh Halls who is the founder of the School of Worship and also the 5,000+ member strong facebook group Australian Worship Network.

A humble high school teacher in Gosford NSW, Josh has been helping thousands of worshippers and worship leaders across Australia come together, with the goal to ‘Encourage’, ‘Connect’, and ‘Equip’ local worshippers to serve their own church and be empowered to do so.

Saved when he was 15, and basically leading worship at his local church ever since, Josh is a prophetic worshipper who believes God wants to unite people around the nation.

“There have been many prophecies on how Australia will help birth an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to then spread to other lands. The movement will be bigger than one church or movement can hold. God is coming back for His church - not churches.

So I started connecting churches and worshippers together chasing unity to help build a generation of worshippers, asking the question, ‘What if every worshipper knew how to release the prophetic song?'”

All around the country, we are seeing this unity and momentum building over the past couple of years. Just looking at this past month alone, Australia saw churches coming together for public, mass worship events in the Gold Coast with Easter United, Adelaide with Jesus in the Park, Melbourne with The Global Harvest, Perth with Kingdomcity Church and Sydney with Matt Redman’s WOR/TH that also happened to feature Darlene Zschech.

2025 has also seen the launch of Vision Christian Media’s Worship Channel. Complementing its main channel, as well as Vision Kids and its youth channel V180, Vision Worship has been broadcasting live 24x7 across Australia since February.

According to Vision’s Content Director Andrew ‘Robbo’ Robinson, the response has been very positive,

“Ever since I can remember, Vision’s main channel has aired the Worship Hour every evening. The program has been a much-loved part of our programming, helping to focus hearts on the Lord, and so we knew there would be demand for Vision Worship, but it has exceeded even our expectations.”

There is a broad list of Australian names featured on Vision Worship, including Hillsong, Darlene Zschech, CityAlight, Nathan Fawcett, Planetshakers and Reuben Morgan. However, Robbo would love to see more ‘home grown’ content on the channel. He shares,

“Vision would love to support local churches and independent artists producing worship music that meets the standard we need for radio.”

Now is obviously an exciting time for worship music in Australia, but what is the future of Australian worship music? From big church recordings, to chamber choirs, to worship bands like Sons of Korah, Australians are blessed to be home to an ever-increasing variety of worship music genres with a new, must-listen being Hillsong LoFi that launched earlier this year.

Vision Worship Channel launched February 2025

Navy Jones in his Adelaide studio, May 2025

But before peering too much into the future, perhaps we should follow the wise-old adage to first look back to the past.

Adelaide-based artist Navy Jones has been building a cult following by taking beloved hymns and performing them with updated folk arrangements. Although the words can be hundreds of years old, Navy shares the songs still have the same impact, and are just as applicable now as they once were.

“Worship is ultimately about God. For us both personally and together as the Church, it’s about being who we were designed to be. First and foremost, worship is meant to be an expression of love to the Lord and to one another. While we rightly apply the term ‘worship’ to what we do in a church service or to describe a style of music, it cannot be limited to just those things.”

It's this motivation that has seen Navy continue to build on his craft. His latest release, A Hymn For Today Vol 4 once again instantly takes the listener back to another time, sharing a connection with earlier believers from centuries ago who would have also been singing the same true words to our never-changing God.

“We’re designed to worship the Lord, and we’re not living as we were designed to, unless in our music, our work, our homes, really in all things we’re worshipping Him!”

Perhaps that is the answer all along. Whether the medium is cassette, radio or spotify; whether the genre is CCM, hymns or lofi; whether the language is English, Chinese or Thai; the future of Australian worship is a church in unity, working together and taking worship out of the church building and into the world.

Follow:

Released this May, Joshua Halls published
The Sound Before the Breakthrough'

Images courtesy of Navy Jones, Joshua Halls and Vision Christian Media.

Also published at: https://dailydeclaration.org.au/2025/06/06/future-worship-music-australia/

In partnership with Australia's largest Christian news site The Daily Declaration, Australian Christian Records shares a monthly Christian music column featuring the TCM OZ 5 charts, artist stories, new releases and local Christian music news.

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