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 address questions of faith and tradition related to worship, to encourage a spirit of collaborative learning and inquiry, and to stimulate growth in understanding through questions that arise of out of experiences of all kinds of churchgoers.
To explore ways to leverage the congregation's worship and missional priorities and promote a greater commitment to discipleship and service through studies and events related to worship and justice.
To creatively tell the stories of all ages and develop a rhythm of worship in a new church community through conversations, Bible studies, shared meals and a congregational retreat.
To help persons of different ages and abilities grow in faith through worship and to encourage collaboration between pastors and worship leaders through a series of learning events.
To train leaders in teaching techniques and motivational activities for the enlivening of singing in congregations that will help transform worshipers into effective disciples.
To gather a community around silence, contemplative prayer and meditation on Scripture and ancient Christian texts, in order to facilitate encounters with God's living presence in worship.
To empower members of three local congregations to engage in spiritual formation through practicing and sharing artistic works of song, prayer, and Scripture.
To promote the full, conscious, active participation of all worshipers as a fully intergenerational community in a collaboration of pastors and laypersons from several congregations.
To renew a Spanish worshiping community through communal practices of worship connected to art, dance, hospitality, and service.
To nurture a cohort of artists who will contribute to the faith formation of the whole congregation by creating art with and for the congregation.
To strengthen corporate worship with theological reflection, innovative and embodied worship elements, creative arts, and the unique gifts of the congregation.
To engage worshipers in a year of walking with Jesus by multisensory worship through the seasons of the church year and connections with worshipers' daily lives.
