1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 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.
To invite worshipers into reflection on traditions of liturgical art that facilitates engagement with wonder and the beauty of God, culminating in the collaborative creation of paraments for the worship space.
To deepen, enrich, and connect the individual and corporate worship life of congregants by drawing on the devotional practices of the saints throughout history in aesthetically rich and cohesive worship experiences that have corresponding practices which engage the senses and foster embodied devotional practices at home.
David Keep
To deepen worshipers' theology and spiritual life by creating an online Advent calendar that features visual art and music, and by holding art interpretation events and panel discussions in which participants engage theological truths—particularly the incarnation—through the arts.
To foster ecumenical connections among twelve churches by participating in the creation of pottery to form the faith of worshipers as the theological imagery of God as the potter whose hands continue to mold and reform is carried into the worship of each church and into ecumenical worship gatherings.
To enrich worship by engaging the arts in order to promote healing and understanding in the midst of social injustices.
Rebecca Slough
To explore how the spatial and visual dimensions of congregational worship shape diverse Anabaptist communities, in order to create resources that facilitate culturally-informed reflection on visual arts in worship and to curate visual art resources for use in Anabaptist worship.
To curate art and liturgy into an experience of Stations of the Resurrection that will promote a deeper engagement with the season of Eastertide and the grace of Christ's resurrection.
Maria Eugenia Fee
To establish and facilitate a series of arts-based leadership development workshops for pastors and church leaders in order to introduce them to the formational value of the arts in worship and invigorate arts-based worship practices in their faith communities.
To explore artistry in the Bible and in Christian tradition in order to help worshipers experience art as worship and to give them opportunities to create visual art that invites worshipers into the Biblical story.
Sr. Jeana Visel
To support deeper study and experience of Byzantine iconography and theology by creating a moveable iconostasis that will aid the community's growth in knowledge and appreciation of the theology and spiritual practices of iconography and broaden its experience of Eastern expressions of worship.
To discover and express fresh dimensions of God by equipping worshipers to give testimony to experiences of God at work through personal storytelling and visual art.
To explore the parables of Jesus in the Gullah translation of the Bible using four art forms, in order to enhance the discipleship, prayer and worship of four congregations.
