1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2024 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
CICW has awarded Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants for over 20 years to teacher-scholars and worshiping communities in 45+ states and provinces and across 40+ denominations and traditions—including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, non-denominational, and other Protestant communities.
While worship styles and practices vary greatly across these traditions, the grant projects typically explore at least one of CICW’s ten core convictions related to worship. Explore the hundreds of projects we’ve funded across both streams of the program.
To encourage meaningful connection to the idea of Christian community within a Hispanic context through the exploration of community-oriented worship practices.
Steven Felix-Jager
To support church practitioners in their aesthetic, pastoral, and theological deliberations about congregational worship music by addressing multiple modes of discernment, with the goal of leading to deeper, more empathetic understanding of worship traditions.
Layla A. Karst
To explore the pastoral and theological implications of online pandemic Liturgies of the Word, focusing especially on the translation of ritual practices between off-line and online worship and on emerging understandings of ecclesial leadership and authority.
To help church leaders learn how to develop worship, discipleship, and missional practices that connect with congregants’ Monday-through-Saturday lives through skill mapping, a cohort program, and a three-day intensive.
To engage youth and young adults by remembering and retelling stories of the Black church through development of a lectionary, worship guide, and Sunday School curriculum emphasizing the seven principles of Kwanzaa.
Daria Spezzano
To draw on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to provide tools for disaffiliated Catholic college students to engage the goodness, truth, and beauty of God in worship as a response to their search for meaning.
To center the sacraments in worship by collaboratively creating artwork for worship that contextualizes images of bread, wine, and water for each season of the church year.
To promote a community that moves from inclusion to belonging for congregants with intellectual disabilities and their families by reducing barriers to full participation and forming the congregation to actively welcome everyone made in God’s image.
To spiritually form worshipers of all ages by compiling stories told by children into books about worship, prayer, and scripture.
To encourage worshipful reflection on Easter hope by creating a theologically informed outdoor art installation and hosting events related to the piece.
To encourage multisensory worship and a deeper appreciation for the incarnational nature of the Christian faith by creating a sacred music program that includes instruction on the theology of worship, special music in festival liturgies, and a retreat.
To promote ecumenical worship and hymn singing by hosting multi-choir hymn festivals and offering organ lessons focused on creative hymn accompaniment.
