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 create opportunities for students to find community and a space to explore their faith through dinner church, pilgrimage, and retreats that empower student leaders to craft liturgy that speaks to their lived experience in a culture with a broken relationship with creation.
To strengthen the understanding and practices of worship and to equip worship team members through learning opportunities that lead to new and creative expressions of worship.
To nurture the church’s preaching team, including active and potential preachers, through workshops, conferences, and team practices that nurture the preaching life.
To engage students at Furman University in weekly student-led worship by equipping student leaders and developing ecumenical liturgical resources.
To engage congregants and the community in worship experiences outside of traditional Sunday services through workshops and small-group worship experiences that incorporate music and the visual and performing arts.
To encourage spiritual and emotional healing among congregations and clergy by educating church leaders in trauma-informed worship, pastoral care, and other ministry practices.
To create liturgies for workers that lift up the particular needs, laments, and blessings within the workers’ vocations.
To increase community awareness of the Moravian Christian tradition and welcome worshipers from other Christian traditions and religious backgrounds to experience faith, love, and hope through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
To make new worship music resources of all styles accessible to worshipers globally by creating an online worship community that participates in training workshops, fosters the creation of new music, and provides access to a variety of worship resources.
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.
To discern the theological distinctiveness and ethnocultural diversity of the church’s music by providing tools to evaluate CCLI Top 100 praise music from an Anabaptist theological perspective.
To engage in liturgies and educational roundtables that facilitate inclusive attitudes and practices that welcome those who have been historically marginalized.
