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 offer workshops in North Carolina and Texas to address processes and principles of developing and leading multisensory worship.
To collaborate with four urban multicultural congregations to train and nurture children to lead worship through a youth choir.
To equip, encourage and enable Christian composers and leaders/pastors within a broader Christian context of Biblical theology and mission by offering the Forging Links Conference, and to encourage integration of new material through workshops and communication with worship and arts leaders.
To offer monthly worship services which utilize Light into the World: Hope for a New Day, a bluegrass setting of the Lutheran liturgy with all original music by a young composer, Kent Gustavson, to train volunteer musicians and to lead workshops both locally and nationally to share what they have learned.
To provide liturgical formation to musicians and others responsible for liturgy through a Summer Camp experience.
To create a musical setting of the Eucharistic service which reflects the theological and musical aesthetic of the faith community, and to offer educational workshops to introduce the history and practice of liturgical singing.
To enhance the leadership of musicians in smaller congregations by offering training in musical, pastoral and leadership skills through the Leadership Program for Musicians Serving Small Congregations (LPM).
To sponsor a composer-in-residence to compose ten “call and response” invocations (prayers) that will be integrated into all aspects of the church’s worship life as a community.
To conduct two worship renewal seminars for small congregations, and invite up to eight congregational worship planning teams to enter into extensive on-site consultation with experts in liturgical music, worship space and environment.
To conduct a seminar to address the need for clergy, choirs and congregations to better understand the Psalms and how the Psalms deepen the prayer life of congregations and nurture their faith.
To offer a daylong symposium and to develop resources for singing the psalms in worship. The project will acquaint worship leaders with choices involving musical styles, methods and modes of presentation and accompaniment, and equip worship leaders to teach others to embrace the psalms.
To develop music and visual arts for the liturgical year which will encourage and inspire creativity in small congregations with limited resources.
