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Ron Rienstra

Ron Rienstra (ron.rienstra@gmail.com)  is visiting assistant professor of preaching & worship at Western Theological Seminary.


Articles by this author:

  • First Things First

    Centering Our Praise in God
    By Ron Rienstra
    June 2011

    Each spring at Western Theological Seminary we hold an end-of-year awards convocation, as do many educational institutions. It’s a special ceremony to celebrate God’s gifts to the whole community and to honor students who have made particularly good use of those gifts. Awards are granted for excellence in biblical studies, church history, ethics, missiology, preaching, pastoral care, systematic theology, and so on.

  • The Wetter the Better

    Remembering Our Baptism Every Week
    By Ron Rienstra
    March 2010

    Note: All names in this story have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals mentioned.

  • Songs for Worldwide Communion

    Here on Jesus Christ I Will Stand; La Uncion; Faithful Is Our God; Sixfold Amen
    By Ron Rienstra
    June 2008

    One of my favorite churches is the beautiful Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California. While this church has many striking and meaningful features, I especially love the majestic earth-toned tapestries hung along each side of the nave.

  • Standing on Holy Ground

    Pastoral Prayer as Pastoral Care
    By Ron Rienstra
    March 2008

    Pastors know that one of the most significant things they do in their ministry is pray for and with their parishioners. When the sorrow of a recent loss, or the fear of what a cancer may do, or the joy of two lives joined together compel people to ask their pastor (or anyone else!) to pray for them, the one sitting in the living room chair or beside the hospital bed is, in fact, standing on holy ground.

  • Ideas for Including Lament in Your Worship

    Resources Culled from a Blog
    By Ron Rienstra, Kendra G. Hotz
    December 2006

    There are many worship planning resources available on the Internet—some better than others. One site you may want to spend some time on is http://worshiphelps.blogs.com (see RW 80). We have culled the following practical ideas from three different blog entries.

  • Complexifying the Liturgy

    An Alternative Order for Campus Worship
    By Ron Rienstra
    September 2006

    As we plan weekly worship here at Fuller Seminary, the worship interns and I have been talking quite a bit lately about three persistent and related problems.

  • Worship Pedablog

    A Web-based Teaching Tool for Worship Teams
    By Ron Rienstra
    June 2006

    New times call for new tools. I learned that lesson these past months as I struggled to find adequate “together” time with the worship interns at Fuller. We have a set time to meet, of course, but there is so much to do just to get ready for worship that we don’t have the leisure for genuine schooling. It’s important for us both to plan and to do regular reflection on our weekly worship planning; we need concentrated as well as casual interaction in order to bring our lives and work into conversation.

  • Worship Planning Blogs

    Collaboration, Innovation, Inspiration
    By Ron Rienstra
    June 2006

    In the previous article (Campus Notes) I outlined some of the features of online web logs (blogs) that make them an intriguing new communication tool:

  • Giving Everyone a Voice: How We Used a Song Survey for Teaching, Ownership, Renewal, and Unity

    By Ron Rienstra
    March 2006

    As the new chapel interns at Fuller Seminary gathered to begin planning worship at the beginning of the year, it became apparent that we had a problem. After we’d assembled our raw materials—piles of hymnals, sheaves of guitar fake sheets, and stacks of songbooks, there was little room left on the table for our pencils and notepads. The collection was just too cumbersome to work with.

  • Learning from Creative Tension: Observations on Alternative/Emerging Worship in England

    By Ron Rienstra
    March 2006

    Ron Rienstra and his family spent a semester in London, England, in 2004.