Details

2020 Calvin Symposium on Worship | Seminar

We live in an age of mass incarceration. Although the United States makes up approximately five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. As Christians, how should we address mass incarceration in the U.S.? This seminar explored the powerful effect two ministries are having at the Richard Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. 

Ten years ago, Celebration Fellowship Church was planted behind bars at Handlon. For a decade, this church has grown in numbers and in Christian community, helping to transform Handlon  from the inside out. Nearly five years ago, Calvin Seminary and Calvin University started the Calvin Prison Initiative (CPI), which offers inmates a chance to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Faith and Community Leadership and provides Christian and moral leadership in prisons. Together these ministries allow inmates to move from worship to the classroom and back again and build a Christian worldview that equips them to be agents of renewal across the prison, powerfully transforming the prison culture. Additional participants joined the discussion, including author and pastor Dominique DuBois Gilliard, and others from Celebration Fellowship and the CPI program.

Listen Online

Recent Media Resources

Preaching and Peacemaking

What is the role of preaching in situations of deep conflict and division? How can preaching participate in the Christian call to peacemaking? This panel will explore the connections between gospel preaching and peacemaking efforts.

June 30, 2024
Receptive Ecumenism in Neighborhoods, Soccer Fields, and Workplaces

This session will explore how to talk about differences in Catholic and Protestant worship. Every time we talk with a neighbor, teammate, or coworker from a different Christian tradition about what we do in worship and why, we are practicing liturgical theology. 

June 30, 2024