1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2024 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 integrate psalms into corporate and private worship habits in an ecumenical setting, primarily through guided conversations and scholarly-artistic engagement with university students and local pastors.
To deepen engagement with Jesus’ teachings by creating songs, liturgies, and visual artwork in response to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount for use in congregational worship and art-making events.
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 more deeply engage with the arts in worship by commissioning artists to lead the community in creating different art forms to facilitate worship throughout the liturgical year.
To strengthen the connection between Christian worship and creation justice by producing worship songs and liturgical resources that encourage deeper love for and connection to God's creation through public worship.
To create opportunities for students to find community and a space to explore their faith through dinner church, pilgrimage, and retreats that empower student leaders to craft liturgy that speaks to their lived experience in a culture with a broken relationship with creation.
To create liturgies for workers that lift up the particular needs, laments, and blessings within the workers’ vocations.
To engage in liturgies and educational roundtables that facilitate inclusive attitudes and practices that welcome those who have been historically marginalized.
To empower lay leaders to create digital worship services that enable lay leaders in other rural churches to facilitate worship without a clergy member.
To decolonize worship life by auditing the liturgy, music, preaching, and sacred spaces of the church in order to fully live into the church’s commitment to antiracism and its mission of “Sharing Love, Doing Justice, and Building Community.”
To integrate ancient liturgy and prayer with expressions of worship such as art, meal sharing, and communal serviceso as to strengthen connections between gathered worship and daily life.
To create a formation program on liturgy, theology, and musicianship that equips and encourages Spanish-speaking parish musicians and music ministers.
