1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2024 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 become a more hospitable and anti-racist church through training and reflection to deconstruct white-centered worship norms and by expanding the multiplicity of non-Eurocentric ways that we engage in worship.
To equip emerging BIPOC worship artist activists to shape their local ministries to develop a prophetic imagination that celebrates the goodness and beauty of the justice God seeks for our world.
To integrate intergenerational relationships, imagination, and playfulness into worship life to promote faith formation that begins in and transcends the rituals of worship.
To intentionally engage the views of the full range of our racially and economically diverse congregation about the meaning and purpose of worship and to integrate their ideas, gifts, and perspectives into worship practices that feel authentic and hospitable to all.
To encourage and equip choir members as worship leaders, not performers, by creating a network for choirs in Vancouver’s Chinese churches that will commission hymn anthems, share resources, and prepare choir members to strengthen the corporate ministry of congregational singing.
To create a worship learning and vision group that will develop its theological understanding of worship and collaboratively imagine and implement new, culturally inclusive worship elements.
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.
To illuminate God’s beauty and brilliance in Durham’s public housing communities by offering liturgical arts learning events and collaborating with public housing residents to plan and host outdoor worship services.
To create embodied, tactile, and participatory worship practices and liturgies to promote communal engagement and create a hospitable and accessible worship environment.
To embody a connection between Christian liturgy and ethical living by implementing a hospitable, ecumenical, multicultural, and bilingual worship gathering for students, staff, and faculty that emphasizes the well-being of the planet and the healing of broken relationships, especially those with Indigenous peoples.
To expand an existing food truck ministry by offering accessible communal worship opportunities in parks, bus stations, and parking lots where meals are served.
To equip local church leaders to worship by letting “justice roll down” in their lives, by training cohort members to address structural racial disparities, and by developing a theological framework that highlights God’s desire for shalom and the advocacy for the oppressed found in scripture.
