1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 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 encourage and enable Native Americans to worship God in an authentic indigenous way through a process that will include learning and offering a workshop to other churches and the community.
To engage college students through revitalization of a chapel program using the strengths of the liberal arts college—literature, poetry, studio art, music, theater, and dance—by providing instruction, inspiration, collaboration and materials for college students to connect their academic artistic endeavors with the worship life of the college chapel.
To encounter and practice Vertical Habits as a significant part of spiritual formation through an interactive art exhibit, a month-long devotional written by church leaders and a lecture series taught by pastors from the church or local community.
To develop a six-week series on understanding and applying liturgical practices in daily life that will include orders of worship focusing on each practice, a sermon series, and weekly family activity booklets.
To explore and animate the linkage between worship and justice through a process, including a conference, theological reflection, and a series of public worship events, which will lead to the creation of resources to help deepen the connection between worship and justice.
To encourage a deeper involvement in and understanding of worship among students by focusing on prayer in small group gatherings and creating concrete sensory liturgical experiences.
To study the implications of church architecture and sacred space in worship through a Peer Learning process that will assist the congregation to develop plans for the construction of a new church building.
To engage laity and clergy from nine historic congregations in critical dialogue, theological reflection, action and celebration around the historical aspects of worship in the AMEC, in order to identify new interpretations of traditional models for worship, seek new vision for worship that is intergenerational, and bridge historical worship traditions with contemporary ones.
To develop resources for the four parts of the Episcopal Eucharist service, four activity sessions for young people and a Vacation Bible School program for ages 6 through 12 around the Vertical Habits themes, focusing on how these themes are aspects of a healthy relationship with God.
To teach Vertical Habits through a series of seven worship services that will include creative elements focused on Scripture and a person in history who cultivated a specific Vertical Habit. The series will include take home materials that will help both adults and children practice the habit throughout the week.
To integrate the speech we offer to God in worship with our words and lifestyles outside of corporate worship, through teaching basic worship vocabulary of faith, building Christian community, and connecting people with each other and existing ministries within the congregation.
To engage congregants of different ages and different ethnicities/languages in worship preparation and celebration as one body through intentional, joint learning, reflecting, planning, and creating worship for September 11, Reformation Sunday, a service focusing on the communion of the saints and commemorating martyrs, and Pentecost.
