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 create participatory worship experiences utilizing visual, musical, and dramatic arts to promote a multisensory awareness of God' presence, especially for the deaf community.
To enrich home-based small group worship gatherings by developing resources of Christian music, symbolic objects and rituals, and creative worship practices.
To implement a year-long series of congregation-wide learning events about worship and to anchor the congregation's identity and ministries in its worship life.
To address the shame and trauma of refugee Christians by collaborating with leaders from various refugee congregations to create indigenous expressions of worship that praise God for deliverance from shame.
To explore alternative means of worship using drums from around the world, to promote diversity, multiculturalism, inclusion, and outreach in worship.
To train leaders through study of the theology of baptism and to promote life together in a diverse community through designing and implementing vesper worship services.
To develop innovative and informal worship services involving global music to connect with spiritual but not religious persons in the community.
To connect a theology of worship and the arts with the mission of the church through a monthly series of ecumenical worship services partnering with local homeless shelters, hospitals, and nursing homes.
To enter a church-wide intergenerational exploration of the gospel through the arts of drama, song, dance, storytelling, and sculpture and to integrate these artistic forms in worship experiences through the seasons of the church year.
To explore how different populations of students can come together in a shared experience of worship, spiritual formation and growth that will lead to deeper understanding of Christian traditions globally and historically.
To equip those who lead worship in correctional facilities with youth and adults by bringing together chaplains for a two-day conference to learn together, train volunteers and share their experiences and learning through a blog and conference calls to gather examples of how worship impacts individuals in correctional facilities.
To partner with local congregations in developing weekly evening worship at The Light at Bare Bulb Coffee, an innovative new church development, that utilizes liturgical, musical and artistic resources from a variety of Christian traditions and to offer three day-long workshops for local church leaders to learn about the resources being used.
