1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 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.
Find resources related to the learning from the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants Program.
To strengthen practices of congregational song by introducing a globally diverse diet of hymns and other congregational songs and by strengthening understanding of the contexts in which songs were created.
To create a consortium of young adults who will be trained and mentored to design and execute a monthly ecumenical, multicultural, and multigenerational worship gathering.
To foster unity among different African ethnic communities and awareness of varying worship needs and experiences by facilitating collaboration among worship leaders at African ethnic churches.
To promote deeper participation in worship by exploring the unique musical contributions of African-American Catholic parishes.
To expand students’ imagination and understanding of God and the people of God by implementing diverse worship expressions.
To create a welcoming, multi-racial worship experience that explores God's liberation and justice through singing gospel music.
To form a hospitable communal worship space that welcomes worshipers’ whole selves and celebrates all of the Body of Christ in its diversity by engaging in music, arts, and storytelling.
To engage multicultural worship as a means of reconciliation through immersion experiences that expand students’ awareness of God and will inform their leadership of multicultural worship on campus and at local churches.
To contextualize worship practices in a Navajo church by engaging Scripture in ways reflective of Navajo cultural practices.
To foster intergenerational and multicultural engagement in worship in order to deepen worshipers’ connections to Scripture, one another, their community, and their history.
To develop a chapel worship ministry that reflects the ethnic and ecclesial diversity of the campus and community by welcoming diverse theologians and practitioners and cultivating relationships with local churches.
To facilitate intergenerational faith formation in worship by creating spaces for learning and collaboration between pastors and lay leaders in ethnically and denominationally diverse congregations.
