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 equip lay and ordained preachers with practical tools and theological understanding to empower them to be innovative, inclusive, creative, confident, and spiritually attuned worship leaders and pastors.
To engage the spiritual disciplines in worship in order to promote spiritual flourishing for the seminary community as well as nearby community churches.
To ground congregants in faith rituals that tie the mind and body together by offering workshops, structured according to the order of worship, that highlight particular practices and experiences for use in worship.
To promote unity in the global church and the integration of worship with daily discipleship by equipping worship leaders and musicians with resources for communion that invite congregations into worship that remembers Christ’s sacrifice, deepens worshipers’ participation, and extends hospitality and peace beyond the sanctuary.
Laura Benjamins
To evaluate the musical curriculum of local churches and offer practical insights for engaging congregants in musical theological formation.
To transform physical worship spaces through visual arts that will fully reflect the beauty, dignity, and accessibility of God’s kingdom by means of collaborative design and shared creation.
To expand a collaborative preaching model that transforms the traditional sermon into a shared act of interpretation through a combination of coaching, consulting, research, peer learning, and Spanish-language accessibility.
To create experiences of the Eucharist inside and outside of Sunday worship that will draw people into ritual practices of Christian worship and deepen their connection to one other and to Christ.
To promote a deeper understanding and practice of psalm-singing through teaching and singing the psalms in preparation to write, record, and sign modern responsorial psalm settings.
To deepen engagement with a culturally broad array of sacred chant traditions in order to facilitate reconciliation between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches.
To engage multilingual lay preachers from several congregations in a yearlong preaching workshop to strengthen their pastoral skills, expand kingdom impact in their communities, and cultivate sustainable leadership across diverse congregations.
To ground the congregation in biblical and theological foundations of prayer by teaching on the theology and practice of prayer and by fostering opportunities for shared intergenerational group prayer experiences.
