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 deepen a sense of belonging for all members of an increasingly diverse worshiping community by creating trauma-informed, accessible, and contextual music and worship practices and by developing diverse and often marginalized leaders.
To facilitate the active participation in worship of children with hearing impairment by engaging them in expressive dance.
To enhance and build upon the nontraditional Jazz Vespers service to offer innovative and radical welcome for in-person and virtual attendees to experience healing and hope.
To promote a community that moves from inclusion to belonging for congregants with intellectual disabilities and their families by reducing barriers to full participation and forming the congregation to actively welcome everyone made in God’s image.
To learn about worship symbolism and accessibility concerns that hinder welcoming all worshipers through engaging in learning groups that explore relevant resources and analyze other worship spaces.
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 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.
Kate Finley
To explore how public church practices, including sermons, corporate prayer, and other worship practices reflect various understandings and interpretations of mental disorders and to construct a practically applicable online resource that will enable congregations to be more inclusive of those who experience mental disorder and enriched by the unique perspectives they embody.
To deepen the congregation’s knowledge of worship as a lifestyle and the practice of a Biblical worship that includes people from different generations and with different abilities.
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.
To promote active involvement and engagement in worship of people with dementia and people with varied abilities through use of drama in worship.
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.
