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 re-enliven drive-in worship services by exploring embodied worship practices and to encourage deeper connections in worship and with those who gather for worship.
To nurture personal and communal faith through workshops and creative events that encourage members of the worshiping community to grow closer to God and to each other.
To nurture a richer rhythm of weekly worship, seasonal gatherings, special events, and creative collaborations, all rooted in scripture’s counter-cultural narratives, so that worshipers may more fully embody the transforming power of the gospel.
To bring together a longstanding Presbyterian worshiping community and its Latino neighbors through the development of culturally blended worship services.
To promote deeper spiritual formation, unity, and engagement within the worshiping community by providing training for emerging worship leaders, musicians, and preachers.
To foster healing-centered worship among Punjabi immigrants by incorporating music, meditation, and psalms into trauma-informed liturgical practices.
To promote unity, shared discipleship, and renewed vitality in congregational life through intergenerational creation and leading of worship using labs, story circles, mentoring, and shared worship services.
To develop the congregation’s capacity to integrate worship and discipleship by exploring story and narrative in the contexts of scripture, worship, and daily life.
To cultivate cross-cultural worship exchanges by exploring music as storytelling that expresses resilience, cultural identity, and gospel joy in Antiguan congregations.
Lindsay Hanson
To reimagine how sacred spaces are experienced and to deepen Christian practices through movement, presence, and community participation by bringing contemporary choreography into sanctuaries through an immersive live performance that will transform how congregations and communities experience dance, music, and sacred architecture, creating meaningful embodied encounters that connect faith and art.
To help congregations and individual Christian worshipers grow in their understanding and practice of lament in the context of a diverse, collaborative community by equipping them with resources to weave lament into regular worship services and into a collaborative ecumenical Ash Wednesday service.
To nurture the creative and communicative gifts of the clergy by involving them in a poetry and preaching course.
