1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 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 promote ecumenical worship and hymn singing by hosting multi-choir hymn festivals and offering organ lessons focused on creative hymn accompaniment.
To enrich worship by incorporating multiple forms of art created by worshipers at intergenerational workshops focused on creating art as a form of prayer.
To learn about worship symbolism and accessibility concerns that hinder welcoming all worshipers through engaging in learning groups that explore relevant resources and analyze other worship spaces.
To strengthen worshipers’ experience of communion and to deepen the connections between Eucharistic worship and all areas of life by gathering parishioners for weekly opportunities to study, reflect, and practice community.
To strengthen intergenerational worship through the creation of a children’s choir, liturgical discipleship courses for children, and communal prayer projects that integrate people from different generations.
To deepen the congregation’s knowledge of preaching and worship through the development and implementation of a curriculum centered in the scriptures and the community, with the added goal of sharing the curriculum with other congregations in this church’s network.
To enable collaborative worship planning and leadership through worship leader training, exploration of the congregation’s spiritual gifts, video creation, special music opportunities, and household worship kits.
To create a safe place of healing for people seeking to reclaim their faith and its expression in their own cultural contexts by planning services that highlight a plethora of cultural expressions of worship and shaping the liturgy to encourage different cultural expressions of various faith practices.
To facilitate discipleship by deeply engaging the stories of Advent and Easter through multiple disciplines, including theology, personality, technology, and worship arts.
Vernon Whaley
To strengthen the theological training and spiritual formation of worship leaders through the development of foundational courses for a worship leadership certificate program.
To affirm the goodness of God’s creation of Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures through celebrating AAPI heritage in dinner church communion services, exposing AAPI invisibility on social media, and exploring scripture and theology through AAPI perspectives.
To deepen the congregation’s understanding of the theology of worship and its faithful practice through a series of seminars, classes, and activities based on the CICW’s Ten Core Convictions.
