Lester Ruth is a historian of Christian worship. He works as an instructor in worship history at the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies and as the Research Professor of Christian Worship at Duke Divinity School. Before arriving at Duke in July, 2011, he taught at Asbury Theological Seminary and Yale Divinity School. Interested in all eras and forms of worship, his main concerns are worship in the early church, Methodism, and recent developments in contemporary worship. His passion is seeing how worship of the past might enrich the church today. The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has sponsored some of his recent works.