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 train Worship Interns in worship leadership and theology of worship that will become evident in multi-valenced, theologically astute and creative worship services when the community gathers for chapel as well as when students serve in congregations, youth groups, retreats and camps.
To train 20 worship leaders and other interested congregants through Bible studies and workshops focused especially on the Psalms and Vertical Habits, Christ-centered hospitality, Scripture reading, visual arts, creative and relevant music and collaborative planning and evaluation that will be contextualized to form participatory and communal worship services in one of the most impoverished districts in Canada.
To initiate learning opportunities for students to encounter and dialogue with local worship leaders and church musicians by offering practicum courses and related choir events that will provide students with hands-on experience in worship leadership that includes faculty and peer feedback and frameworks for liturgical theological reflection.
To engage students, faculty and community members across disciplines/departments in a collaborative study of the role of congregational song in worship through a year-long discernment process that will include book studies, discussion and workshops to consider how theology, poetry, and music combine to serve and support the liturgical actions in worship by analyzing congregational song choices in worship settings and developing a clear process and principles for choosing and evaluating congregational songs.
To create liturgy, music and dance that will convey the message of God’s radical hospitality in the Gospel and the Eucharist through a weekend parish retreat and a year-long study of the Psalms that engages the various cultures and ages of those who worship in this increasingly diverse parish.
To equip 30 leaders at the local parish level to become cultural mentors to parish liturgy committees in order to help local parishes learn how to worship together as multicultural communities in an area where worship is celebrated in over 40 different languages every Sunday.
To offer workshops and a focus on the Psalms that will create worship habits infused with multicultural voices expressed in music, storytelling, dance, drama and preaching in a growing and increasingly diverse congregation.
To offer workshops and a retreat that will enrich the understanding of Scripture and preaching for pastors of the Weed Ministerial Association and their congregations in a remote frontier county of northern California and to build ecumenical community by worshiping together quarterly.
To engage worshipers of all ages in a participatory process of education and development that will result in new liturgies for evening contemplative Prayer Around the Cross worship services and vibrant liturgical symbols around which the community will pray.
To empower, educate and challenge the congregation to intentionally prepare, participate and reflect on worship by offering a series of creative, hands-on workshops, book studies and reflection suppers that will lead to deeper involvement of more people both in planning worship and in understanding that worship is the mission of the entire congregation.
To initiate research, reflection and learning that will create liturgies that embrace the gifts, needs and presence of multiple generations, that teach and form disciples, and that incorporate rites of passage for all stages of life in a robust, urban, mostly young adult-emergent church based at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
To create within the congregation a deepened understanding of the significance of singing the Psalms in worship through a workshop introducing Psalms for All Seasons, evening study groups in homes, an intergenerational visual arts group, a choral music study for all ages, a Lenten devotional Guide and a focus on the Psalms in all levels of Christian education.
