Come, Let Us Worship- Thoughts for ALL Congregations

A Free Webinar for Everyone thinking About Going Back to Church

We’ve all been socially distanced for a long time. Our congregations have found ways to minister around the barriers, making the most of technology and growing in their skills weeks by week. Even so, we’re all feeling anxious to “go back to normal,” and, slowly but surely, the restrictions are being lifted around the world. This leads to a whole new set of anxieties, as we worry about how to be safe and feel safe in a very different normal than before we heard of COVID-19.

On Saturday, May 16^th, from 10:00 to 11:00 am, the Reformed Church Center at New Brunswick Theological Seminary will host “Come, Let Us Worship”: Thoughts for ALL (Not Just Reformed) Congregations. A set of short presentations will each be followed by brief discussions.

	Donna Field is a graduate of NBTS and a DMin candidate at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. An RCA minister and a registered nurse certified in Bio-Ethics, Humanities, and Law, she works as a Clinical Medical Ethics Consultant for Northwell Health and is an associate professor at the Donald and Barbara Zucker/Northwell School of Medicine. She will present on the public health considerations of returning to gathered worship.
	The twelfth president of NBTS, Micah McCreary was President and CEO of McCreary and Madison Associates, Incorporated, a psychological and human resources consulting firm, and Associate Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for 21 years. He and his wife, Jacqueline E. Madison-McCreary, pastored the Spring Creek Baptist Church in Moseley, Virginia for 16 years.  He will be looking at the psychological considerations for a congregation returning to gathered worship.
	Amanda Bruehl will help us review organizational considerations about returning to gathered worship. She is the Chief of Staff at NBTS, where she also leads the COVID-19 Re-Open Task Force. She has her Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Grand Valley State University and has held positions in Human Resources, Development, and Administration in a variety of church and nonprofit settings.
	What about singing together and music as we gather for worship again? CJ Kingdom-Grier will lead this module. He is Chief Musician at Maple Avenue Ministries in Holland, Michigan; President of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Cultural and Ethnic Harmony in Holland; a member of the Board of Trustees at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan;  and the Associate Director of Admissions at Western Theological Seminary.
	Daniel Meeter is pastor of the Old First Reformed Church of Brooklyn, New York, with degrees from New Brunswick Theological Seminary and Drew University. He has published extensively, and his book Meeting Each Other in Doctrine, Liturgy, and Government (Eerdmans, 1993) is considered one of the most important modern works on the Constitution of the Reformed Church in America. He will guide us in reflecting theologically about worship in our new situation.

To Register for the event:

This program, scheduled to take place via Zoom, is FREE and open to congregational leaders from all denominations. To take part online or by phone, register in advance at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpf-iqrDMvHtaK3MShbBEQMAVGBI1w5fE6 (only 100 computers or phones will be able to be in the Zoom meeting).