Lester Ruth

Lester Ruth is a historian of Christian worship with particular interests in the early church and the last 250 years, especially the history of contemporary praise and worship. He is passionate about enriching the worship life of current congregations, regardless of style. He believes that careful reflection on the worship of other Christians—whether past or present, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox—can serve to enrich the church today.

Dr. Ruth is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Society for Pentecostal Studies. He is also the former president of the Charles Wesley Society. Able to range across the entire breadth of Christian liturgical history, his most recent studies have been on the band-based worship known as contemporary praise and worship. Along this line, he has recently co-authored with Dr. Lim Swee Hong A History of Contemporary Praise & Worship and Lovin’ On Jesus: A Concise History of Contemporary Worship. He has also edited both popular (Flow: The Ancient Way to Do Contemporary Worship) and academic studies (Essays on the History of Contemporary Praise and Worship) on this worship phenomenon, each of these volumes featuring essays by Duke doctoral students. Dr. Ruth’s works exist in Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, and (soon) Ukranian translations.

Watch a public presentation by Dr. Ruth on contemporary praise and worship.