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.
Find resources related to the learning from the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants Program.
To intentionally center visual arts in the worshiping community to cultivate the congregation’s appreciation of the role of art in forming and shaping its worship life.
Jennifer Allen Craft
To help Christians recognize and confess how sin distorts our relationship to place and hinders our ability to love our neighbors, and to help the church develop artistic practices of placemaking that advance the kingdom of God by promoting justice, beauty, and connection.
To integrate ancient liturgy and prayer with expressions of worship such as art, meal sharing, and communal serviceso as to strengthen connections between gathered worship and daily life.
To help churches and artists learn to collaborate with each other more effectively through an artist-in-residence program that will help worshipers connect more deeply with God, scripture, and one another through the arts.
To deepen worshipers' experience of the beauty and majesty of God in this church's unique space by engaging with the stories of the art glass windows lining the worship space.
To engage the neighborhood community with radical hospitality through creative worship by establishing an arts residency program and community arts events.
To cultivate and nurture intergenerational discipleship through creative arts and songwriting workshops that will result in artwork in the sanctuary and original songs that tell the redemptive story from Genesis to Revelation.
To deepen scriptural reflection and to connect with the community by creating films for use in public worship that feature creative storytelling and dialogue on contemporary issues.
To inspire the prophetic imagination of worshipers and to promote appreciation for God’s gift of beauty through the creation of an artist-in-residence program.
To integrate intergenerational relationships, imagination, and playfulness into worship life to promote faith formation that begins in and transcends the rituals of worship.
To connect older and younger generations in both church and neighborhood communities through creating virtual meeting places for online worshipers and by creating opportunities for intergenerational musical and artistic engagement.
Beth Argot & Kayleen Bobbitt
To conduct fieldwork exploring the use of pilgrimage, movement, and the arts in worship as means of healing trauma and encouraging spiritual integration (knowing God with both our heads and our hearts).
