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.
To foster a dynamic, participatory, and creative worship community where young adults can engage with God through visual arts, music, and worship leadership training.
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 connect with God and others in a distracted world by practicing stillness, listening to each other’s stories, and collaboratively creating music, visual art, and literary pieces that showcase God’s work in the life of the community.
To strengthen intergenerational bonds, nurture creativity, and connect with the surrounding community through creating neighborhood public art inspired by scripture.
To more deeply experience the healing power of the gospel by developing interactive, arts-infused worship experiences.
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.
To foster robust and nuanced dialogue inside and outside the church, to cultivate generous and durable habits of patience and mercy, and to help recover concern for neighbors through artist commissions, group study, writing, conversation, hospitality, and friendships related to the topic of shalom.
To transform physical worship spaces through visual arts that will fully reflect the beauty, dignity, and accessibility of God’s kingdom by means of collaborative design and shared creation.
To grow in experiences and understanding of embodied worship by encouraging movement, artistic expression, and creative exploration in worship.
To strengthen an emerging group of creatives by fostering community, deepening theological understanding of creativity and faith, and encouraging vibrant artistic expressions of worship.
To help participants deepen their experience of God by developing inclusive and artistic worship practices that blend traditional and contemporary elements of worship and cultivate spaces that are welcoming, accessible, and reflective of diverse spiritual needs.
To strengthen worship life by exploring how diverse worship traditions shape communion with God through Christ across cultures using the primary expressions of art and music.
