1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2025 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 investigate how the legacy of white supremacy affects worship practices, to learn to better appreciate and include worship materials from other cultures without appropriating, and to learn how anti-racist practices are implemented by other churches leading the way in these efforts.
To promote genuine grace-filled hospitality in worship through a more racially, culturally, and intergenerationally sensitive worship experience that is sustained and perpetuated through a message of love, adaptability, and social engagement during the worship experience.
Emily Andrews and Will Kynes
To learn from and with an ecumenical group of churches unfamiliar with the practice of corporate lament to gather the most important questions and pastoral concerns related to practicing corporate lament, and to develop practices for retrieving and employing lament in worship.
To promote unity and diversity in local Seventh Day Baptist congregations by gathering worship leaders to discern the transcultural, contextual, cross-cultural, and counter-culture nature of worship as they worship together in diverse ways.
To create a unique opportunity for worshipers to recognize the beauty, majesty, mystery, and holiness of God by developing a dedicated worship space in a barn, and facilitating worship experiences that foster a sense of holy vocation with and among all of God's creation as participants, rather than observers.
Andrew Summerson
To bring together an ecumenical group of scholars to critically analyze early Christian liturgical poetry as prayer and pedagogy in order to give exposure to a significant and underdeveloped voice in contemporary Christianity.
Marcell Silva Steuernagel
To engage in ethnographic research in collaboration with congregations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in order to promote integrative ecclesial environments that bridge the racial divide between White, Black, and Latinx constituencies.
To promote active involvement and engagement in worship of people with dementia and people with varied abilities through use of drama in worship.
To revitalize the congregation’s worship ministry and strengthen the spiritual life in our families by promoting the reading and understanding of the Bible through the celebration of family devotions based on Psalms.
To mentor and develop young people in worship leadership by conducting art lessons, providing creative spaces, and fostering collaborative music teams that will facilitate the full participation of young people in leadership in the community.
Brandon Crowley
To support and engage the public worship of African American congregations by creating a workbook that teaches pastors and local church leaders how to be more inclusive of Black women and LGBTQIA+ folx in their worship designs.
To design a worship gathering contextual to the cultural context, focusing on contemplative, creation-grounded worship that emphasizes the connectedness of all of life and engages in quiet reflection, art, and music to encounter God.
