1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Songs from the people of Korea can deeply enrich your liturgy whether you have Korean-speaking members in your congregation or not. This workshop will introduce a variety of bilingual Korean-English songs that have been newly translated in the past few years as well as strategies to lead them effectively in your own worshiping context.
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While Christian baptism is predominantly a transcultural practice, distinct faith communities worldwide experience this initiation rite through unique contextualizing elements. Join us in a fascinating conversation with Christian leaders from five continents about the rich cultural diversity reflected in baptismal liturgies, imagery, and practices, and how they shape Christian life in their contexts.
What basic models for worship planning are out there, and which patterns will work best in your context? Join a lively discussion of several worship planning models by the authors and pastors who use them. Bring your questions and suggestions as we learn together.
Explore the compelling beauty of the Bible's covenantal vision of the divine-human relationship and the transformative difference this makes for how we worship the triune God. This session will feature insights from the authors of two influential books: Esther Lightcap Meek's Loving to Know: A Covenantal Epistemology and Daniel Block's Covenant: The Framework of God's Grand Plan of Redemption.
In this session Terry Wildman will share the vision, process, and outcomes of the First Nations Version (FNV) New Testament. Why was this translation needed? Who was involved in the translation? What were some of the cultural challenges faced by the translation council? What does it say about the translations done in Native languages in the past? How did the translation council decide on more than 185 key words and terms? What are some of the unique qualities of the FNV versus other English versions? How has the FNV affected the worship expressions of some Native believers? What is the future of the FNV?
Teenagers’ desire to encounter God has been realized throughout history as youth ministry has grown and evolved. Indeed, teenagers have expressed needs and desires to practice and grow their faith at church, school, and home as well as at camps and conferences or on short- and long-term mission trips. On the one hand, these worship efforts have been deeply formative. On the other hand, these worship efforts have focused on attracting and keeping teenagers as much as, if not more than, on spiritual formation. This session will identify key historical patterns in adolescent worship and examine how we might engage their wisdom for faithful worship practices with teenagers today.
Join us after the University worship service (chapel) for a conversation with worship leader Kimberly Williams. We will explore topics related to worship leading and planning for diverse congregations, leading teams, songwriting and recording, and mentoring women in ministry.
This panel will explore the intersectionality between culture and disability. What can we learn from the experiences of people across varying cultures and contexts? What do experiences of racism and ableism in the church have in common? How do they overlap? How does belonging for people with disabilities look different in a variety of cultural contexts?
As inhabitants of the modern age, we are deeply marked by skewed ways of thinking that thwart our humanness, our involvement with the world, and our spirituality. This is a philosophical tune-up that directly challenges and dispels modernity’s implicit philosophy. My philosophical proposals in my 2023 book Doorway to Artistry target the creative process, but they positively affect and bring healing to all arenas of life and work and worship. I pose that we as human persons are meant to live out a joyous “yes” to the real, and our involvement with the real takes the form of intimate encounter and communion. My approach reflects especially on God’s creative act and God’s created things. It taps epiphany, the redemptive encounter, and the Eucharist as paradigms for our knowing, our artistry, and all our everyday involvement with the world, so it should make us better at our stewardly dominion and voicing creation’s praise in worship.
In this panel, Hispanic pastors share the learnings and experiences lived by their congregations after completing projects related to the development of their understanding and practices about worship. Together, they represent a variety of Hispanic denominations as well as of "dreams" they were able to realize (learning about the Creeds, bilingual worship, multigenerational worship, worship in non-traditional settings). Their congregations were part of the first cohort of Hispanic congregations receiving "worship grants" under a new initiative CICW launched in July of 2022.
How does one think about diversity as a Christian or as the church? How might working with and among—or even just thinking about—migrant neighbors contribute to our ecclesial identity? The language of catholicity allows us to imagine the unity of the church not in a monocultural way, but rather as a community inclusive of people of all languages and ethnicities. Migration and migrants today especially remind the church of its own catholic identity. How does the church's identity as a migrant church foster a healthy catholicity in the church's worship? This session will include the use of salsa music to invite participation in a more catholic way of life, asking what multicultural, cross cultural, and intercultural ways of being a church on the move might look like in worship.
“Deconstruction” is a popular term among young people who grew up in the Christian church. In this public lecture, Robert Chao Romero will consider the challenge of widespread deconstruction while offering a hopeful path forward. Expanding on Phyllis Tickle’s analogy of the church having a rummage sale of ideas every few centuries, Romero invites us to consider the contributions of Latina/o theology and the history of the Brown Church as valuable resources for reconstruction on the other side of deconstruction.
Carmen Imes has spent the past fifteen years immersed in the book of Exodus, writing about it for both her master’s thesis and her doctoral dissertation. In this lecture, Imes will share some of the most paradigm-shifting insights she’s had while reading Exodus through an Egyptian lens.
