The Rev. Kevin R. Johnson, who was recently appointed as the new senior pastor of historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, wants to make traditional worship with men in suits and women in dresses relevant for the next generation.
"I want to make traditional church cool," Johnson told The Christian Post.
"Abyssinian, it will always be a traditional Baptist church," he insisted while noting, "We have to make it engaging so that those who want this type of experience with Christ will feel like, 'you know what? I can wear a tie and still be cool. I can wear a dress and still be cool.'"
The pastor's remarks come as part of the come as you are policy when it comes to dressing up for churches nowadays. Many congregations, particularly younger generations, tend to dress how they feel rather than being in formal attire.
Johnson was elected as Abyssinian's new pastor in June, filling the vacancy left by the late Rev. Calvin O. Butts, III, who passed away in 2022 from pancreatic cancer. He served as the church's senior pastor for three decades. Meanwhile, Johnson previously served as senior pastor at Dare to Imagine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which he founded in 2014.
"I think Abyssinian is unique in the sense that Abyssinian represents the best of black culture, black tradition, black faith, black advocacy, and I would even say black future," Johnson said.
He cited several well-known names who previously worshiped at the church, including German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who taught Sunday School at Abyssinian, and former President Barack Obama, who attended the church when studying at Columbia University in the 1980s.
"I'd just sit in the back, and I'd listen to the choir, and I'd listen to the sermon," Obama said of his Abyssinian experience in an interview with Newsweek. "There were times that I would just start tearing up listening to the choir and share that sense of release."
Johnson told CP that he also experienced what Obama felt in the hallowed sanctuary of the megachurch on Sundays.
"There's something about a traditional setting that I still think has relevance. And every time I go out to the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and see the church full, it says to me that we're doing something," he explained.
"When I look at the online numbers and see that we have each week 5,000 or so people across the world — while there's [the] contemporary [approach to worship] and trust me, I know both worlds very well — I still think there's an audience out there that says I can identify with those [traditional] people."
In addition to high culture, Johnson also stressed the importance of preserving unity in the church.
"My focus has been on reviving the Abyssinian spirit. And there are four things that we're doing. The first quarter was focused on unity. So from July through September, I preached about unity, and now the focus is on love," he said, pointing to plans to also focus on service and witness in 2025.
Related Article: Does God Care What We Wear to Church?
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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.