With worship the most attended part of the church life, I consider dynamic and transformational worship that connects with the head and the heart, and engages a variety of senses, to be mandatory. Whenever I preach, I aspire to weave together professional quality worship that creates a cohesive whole, with flow and recurring themes, rather than a series of disparate elements. I delight in employing my theater background on occasion. I always include well-crafted PowerPoint slides, with an occasional video, to complement and enhance (and not distract from) the written and spoken elements of the service.

I greatly enjoy alternative styles of worship. I have planned dozens of worship services for youth and young adults, and led a monthly vespers-planning group. I love collaborative worship services, because I value what happens when worship reflects diverse ideas and voices. I enjoy working with worship associates and music directors to make worship more collaborative. I had the privilege to co-create worship with a high-quality worship associate program during my internship at West Shore, and I brought what I learned there to my ministry at Emerson to develop a strong worship associates team there.

I favor varied styles of worship where one must attend four or five services to know the full sense of the congregation’s worship life. This allows us to experience the fullness of the diverse sources UUism draws from, rather than a lowest common denominator approach of trying to be as generic and innocuous as possible, at the expense of richness and depth. Among these varied styles, always seek to provide certain opportunities in every service: space for grief and healing, to experience connection with one another and something larger than ourselves; and to challenge, call or inspire us to our highest selves.

Worship should be time for everyone to come together regardless of age, whether for whole multigenerational services, or for part of the service during a time for all ages. I am a proponent of children in worship. We think of this as a critical opportunity for children to learn how to be in worship, but often overlook the way that the multi-sensory elements geared toward children can also touch adults in different ways than the spoken elements that tend to dominate worship services. I consider a well-executed Time for All Ages a “ninja sermon,” because of its ability to get the message across effectively without the adults knowing what happened until it’s over. But most crucially it is an opportunity to build community across generations.

I believe it is important to worship in way that reflects and honors the experiences of those who are marginalized. I am inspired by early Universalists, who weren’t afraid to feel the spirit, but embraced and loudly celebrated it. I create spirit filled, uplifting worship that inspires us to make a joyful noise and open up our hearts.