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.
Ruth Elaine Labeth
To study the composition of scripture-based songs in Creole churches in Guadeloupe to help worship leaders and pastors envision culturally contextualized worship.
Amy Whisenand
To explore the relationship between singing and reconciliation in the church through hosting workshops for scriptural study, practice sharing, and collaboration.
To equip a new generation of worship leaders with musical skills and vocal techniques to foster the creation of worship experiences that connect with and reach out to people from the surrounding community.
To create a worship team and provide the group with initial formative training on musical skills and biblical-theological foundations.
To create a youth choir and train choir members and worship leaders on vocal techniques.
To develop a new generation of church musicians and worship leaders who, in addition to typical roles, could acquire skills required to compose new congregational songs and to produce new worship music.
To encourage multisensory worship and a deeper appreciation for the incarnational nature of the Christian faith by creating a sacred music program that includes instruction on the theology of worship, special music in festival liturgies, and a retreat.
To promote ecumenical worship and hymn singing by hosting multi-choir hymn festivals and offering organ lessons focused on creative hymn accompaniment.
To facilitate discipleship by deeply engaging the stories of Advent and Easter through multiple disciplines, including theology, personality, technology, and worship arts.
To enrich worshipers’ understanding of God by curating a collection of new worship resources by, for, and about women that highlights marginalized perspectives and embraces a more mysterious image of the divine.
To facilitate deep engagement with scripture through song by gathering worship leaders, musicians, and pastors to study scripture and then write worship songs inspired by those scriptures.
To gather songwriters, poets, and artists to produce songs, prayers, art pieces, and videos that will resource and inspire under-resourced Anabaptist communities across North America.
