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.
Becki Graves
To celebrate the diversity of Christianity through exploring the contemplative, Holiness, Evangelical, social justice, charismatic, and incarnational expressions of the Church as part of the process of creating original artistic, poetic, and musical stations of the cross to share in local churches.
To engage in spiritual practices of liturgical writing, reflection, prayer, and art to collaboratively create a community prayer book that will facilitate the spiritual growth and well-being of the community through both personal and communal use.
To design a dynamic and collaborative musical process and a multi-song piece to give voice to the ways in which God is moving through the voices of the marginalized.
To meet the increased demands on worship and arts leaders of in-person and online services through creating opportunities for mentorship, rotational leadership, and skill development.
To deepen connections between worshipers and to encourage a practice of recognizing the sacred in all of life by centering corporate worship and home groups on practices of shared attention, communal creation, and joyful expression.
To enhance spiritual connection among all age groups by creating generationally diverse worship teams, educating worship leaders about inclusive worship, and using intergenerational teams to plan worship and develop new liturgical resources.
To deepen community ties and invite other churches into collaboration by hosting art and worship events featuring music, performing arts, and visual arts with activities accessible for all ages.
To intentionally center visual arts in the worshiping community to cultivate the congregation’s appreciation of the role of art in forming and shaping its worship life.
To help churches and artists learn to collaborate with each other more effectively through an artist-in-residence program that will help worshipers connect more deeply with God, scripture, and one another through the arts.
Joel Kiekintveld
To conduct a case study of how a church reimagined its worship model from attraction-based to member-led, in order to address the crisis of decline of church members and clergy by proposing a model of church rooted in the priesthood of believers.
Marjorie Snipes
To examine a diverse range of Christian churches in the rural South and identify newly-emerging ecumenical practices, including shifts in ritual practice, educational activities, and cooperation in joint mission.
Carol Penner
To research Anabaptist worship materials and curate a centralized online site to make historical and contemporary Mennonite resources available for all to use.
