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 use worship arts rituals as a tool to cultivate spiritual transformation in the lives of young people.
To create a consortium of young adults who will be trained and mentored to design and execute a monthly ecumenical, multicultural, and multigenerational worship gathering.
Mimi Larson
To gather wisdom from ministry leaders who thoughtfully engage children in worship, seeking to better theological and pedagogical understanding of how children make meaning of their worship experiences.
Richard Voelz
To create and field-test a workbook that will equip pastors to walk with adolescent preachers as they prepare to preach in public worship and other congregational contexts.
To expand students’ imagination and understanding of God and the people of God by implementing diverse worship expressions.
To deepen young people’s engagement with Scripture, with one another, and with their community by training them to lead worship through dance, music, and mime, using the Psalms as a model.
To break down barriers of age, ethnicity, and worship tradition by engaging and theologically reflecting on the arts, theater, and music in worship.
To develop spiritual habits in students in the context of worship in order to promote a sense of belonging, to deepen transformation, to encourage genuine fellowship, and to tell stories of transformation through the development of Christ-like patterns of living.
To equip children to embody the Christian story through drama in order to deepen their understanding of the God revealed in Scripture.
To cultivate in children an awareness of the beauty of God in worship while teaching them skills for leading worship through music, dance, and visual arts.
To cultivate deep hospitality that allows students from diverse backgrounds to feel at home and be formed in worship by a common vocabulary and common values around spiritual formation and chapel services.
To immerse children from varied religious backgrounds in reflection on worship practices by engaging them in music composition, singing, liturgy writing, and Scripture reading, and to expose adults to the worship styles and traditions of those children.
