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.
Jennifer Lord
To renew Protestant worshiping communities in keeping the church year, through study of and teaching about how an Orthodox parish understands and is spiritually grounded in the church year.
To reimagine the practice of the Lord’s Supper—including designing table installations, creating contextualized liturgies, and hosting culturally specific "love feasts"—to represent the diversity of Christ's body and enrich the spirit of celebration surrounding communion.
To create liturgical and educational resources that equip Moravian clergy and lay leaders to guide worshipers in connecting their faith with social justice.
To anchor congregational worship in the Psalms through the practices of prayer, Scripture reading, and sharing testimony, so that members will be firmly rooted in long-standing healthy habits that biblically inform congregational identity.
To connect faith to action through cycles of education and reflection, liturgical creativity, and discipleship practices that aim to address homelessness and hunger.
To promote deeper participation in worship and embodiment of justice and mission by offering an intergenerational liturgical formation program.
To develop the congregation’s capacity to integrate worship and discipleship by exploring story and narrative in the contexts of scripture, worship, and daily life.
To help congregations and individual Christian worshipers grow in their understanding and practice of lament in the context of a diverse, collaborative community by equipping them with resources to weave lament into regular worship services and into a collaborative ecumenical Ash Wednesday service.
To equip congregations to engage ministries of justice in their worship by hosting training workshops in which leaders engage songs, rituals, prayers, and sermons focused on justice.
To form worshipers whose daily life flows into worship and whose worship flows back into daily life by training participants in liturgy, lay preaching, and table hospitality.
To reclaim joy and play as expressions of faith in worship by inviting special guest preachers to lead services and by creating a lab for translating scripture into embodied practice.
To implement embodied and intercultural worship led by pastors, artists, and community members, to renew faith through narrative, liturgy, and artistic expression, and to strengthen both resilience and hope.
