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.
Clair Mesick
To study New Testament texts on despair, suicide, and mental disorder (“madness”) in their historical and cultural contexts and to consult with experts in pastoral care and psychology to consider implications for the contemporary church context and to provide resources for preaching on these topics that do not demonize mental illness.
Edward Foley
To empower preachers to effectively engage with science in their sermons and homilies through a training program and the creation of digital resources.
To deepen biblical and theological understanding of preaching and empower emerging leaders by developing a participatory model of sermon creation and presentation that intentionally involves youth worship leaders.
To cultivate a spiritually healthy, emotionally resilient, and missionally engaged congregation by forming disciples through contextual preaching, participatory music, liturgical art, and personal devotion practices.
To encourage the congregation’s worship formation by training worshipers to participate in preaching, intercessory prayer, and music.
To train young people to preach through formation that encourages biblical understanding, spiritual growth, and community mission and provides opportunities for youth to preach in various contexts.
To empower lay leaders for the ministry of proclamation and encourage a diversity of voices in the pulpit by developing a lay preacher training program.
To nurture the creative and communicative gifts of the clergy by involving them in a poetry and preaching course.
To train ministers, elders, and pastors to become impactful and transformational preachers and teachers through a year-long educational cohort.
Catherine E. Williams
To promote effective homiletical practices that are integral to the flourishing of Caribbean congregational life by producing instructional materials related to the homiletical wisdom and liturgical practices of Caribbean congregations in the United States and the Caribbean islands.
To promote vibrant, multilingual worship through a multicultural preaching and worship lab that will form, equip, and unite two diverse congregations.
To equip lay and ordained preachers with practical tools and theological understanding to empower them to be innovative, inclusive, creative, confident, and spiritually attuned worship leaders and pastors.
