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 design worship and curriculum that emphasizes the unity of the body of Christ and the richness of differing worship styles across racial and cultural lines through building relationships with families and the worship team of Angel Community Church.
To explore and nurture contextualized worship in an urban church with multi-racial and multi-class membership through consulting with urban and Southeast Asian churches, studying questions about worship and encouraging youth to learn traditional Southeast Asian instruments.
To train youth to create and lead worship in music, proclamation, and liturgy and to help congregation members to more deeply appreciate the needs, concerns, and life of youth both in the church and the community.
To introduce multisensory worship, to study the meaning of the seasons of Advent and Lent, to invite Asian American congregants, especially children and youth, to learn about Asian puppetry and create puppets and dramas with seasonal themes, and to integrate this learning in worship services during Advent and Lent.
To develop culturally relevant worship that is fully rooted in the Christian scriptures and integrally connected to the cultural traditions and sociocultural understandings of the Native American community through monthly gatherings that will include presentations of native dance and song, the development of communion and marriage rituals, and the exploration of other liturgical and ceremonial needs.
To gather clergy and laity from six remote Hawaiian islands to study the history and theology of liturgical worship so they may assist their worshiping community in participation in the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist.
To discover the rich significance of the Lord’s Supper through participating in guided learning experiences that encourage creative response, such as visual and dance interpretations of Wesley hymns based on the Eucharist.
To express diverse, global, and ecumenical worship through education, practice, collaboration, and community involvement in training seminars, cross-disciplinary conversations, and liturgical art.
To explore the creative use of the existing worship space as well as to define and expand the usage of that space through intergenerational study and dialogue on worship.
To empower young people to add rhythm, melody, and harmony to familiar and favorite Scripture passages with the goal of incorporating the resulting music in weekly worship services.
To collaborate as a group of pastors and youth leaders in urban Grand Rapids to learn about the dynamics of worship in relationship to urban youth and hip hop and to explore the possibilities of incorporating their discoveries into the wider worshiping body.
To create multigenerational worship teams that engage in an educational process to learn from each other and work together to plan and lead weekly worship services.
