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 enrich worshipers’ understanding of God by curating a collection of new worship resources by, for, and about women that highlights marginalized perspectives and embraces a more mysterious image of the divine.
To facilitate deep engagement with scripture through song by gathering worship leaders, musicians, and pastors to study scripture and then write worship songs inspired by those scriptures.
To gather songwriters, poets, and artists to produce songs, prayers, art pieces, and videos that will resource and inspire under-resourced Anabaptist communities across North America.
To support, connect, and amplify Christian college students who deeply care about God's earth by creating liturgies of restoration that students can live out in their everyday lives as they connect worship and the mission to serve.
Alexander Jun
To build on previous research in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities by examining the role of chapel leaders in shaping chapel content and culture in order to demonstrate how chapel services shape the culture for diverse attendees.
To strengthen the hermeneutical skills, Biblical literacy, and spiritual agency of worshipers through the development of Bibliodrama in a local congregation that will help traumatized people to find themselves within the story of God.
James K.A. Smith
To prepare an essay that explores how contemporary visual and literary art fosters contemplative habits, an inviting 'preamble' to spiritual contemplation involved in both personal and communal liturgical practices.
To deepen the practice, enrich, and connect the worship-discipleship program and the community outreach program in the context of the semi-rural Hispanic immigrant population.
Erin Raffety
To conduct interviews with persons living with chronic illness and Long COVID, and to analyze the convergence of cultural, theological, and disability-related perspectives among such persons in order to increase their full, conscious, active participation in worship.
To engage the beauty of art in worship in order to awaken our understanding and imagination of what it means to care for God’s created world.
To provide educational resources and practical exercises to facilitate the contextualization of a liturgy marked by biblical and theological content and focused on developing healthy spirituality and human relationships.
To empower the congregation and local community in the practice of biblical hospitality in order to reshape the worship experience to be more hospitable by engaging in outdoor worship and community meals.
