Apply for the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants Program to support and enhance Christian worship practices. We encourage proposals on universal design, cultural engagement, preaching, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and more. Two grant streams are available.
Join us for our Symposium on Worship and Summer Seminars. Engage in inspiring sessions, workshops, and intensive seminars to deepen your understanding and practice of Christian worship.
The Calvin Symposium on Worship is a conference for worshipers, pastors, artists, musicians, scholars, students, ministry leaders, and more. As an ecumenical gathering, the Symposium creates space for Christians to worship, learn, and connect with people from many cultures, contexts, and Christian traditions from across the country and around the world.
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin University advances Christian worship through resources, events, and grants. Since 1997, we have partnered with congregations and organizations to fulfill our mission.
How does worship relate to culture? How is worship in culture, but not of it? This video and accompanying Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture explore four central principles for an open and discerning approach to culture.
How does worship relate to culture? How is worship in culture, but not of it? The Lutheran World Federation's Study Team on Worship and Culture met in Nairobi in January of 1996 and produced the Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture. The statement presents four central principles of the relationship between worship and culture:
1) Worship is transcultural (Worship has certain dynamics that are beyond culture).
2) Worship is contextual (Worship reflects local patterns of speech, dress, and other cultural characteristics).
3) Worship is counter-cultural (Worship resists the idolatries of a given culture).
4) Worship is cross-cultural (Worship reflects the fact that the body of Christ transcends time and space).
We have found that the most meaningful worship - and the wisest worshiping community - does not just choose one of these four as its defining principle, but instead is invigorated by the truth of all four.
Note how this statement nuances the model of being "in but not of" culture, and calls us to a more sophisticated understanding of worship's relationship to culture.
The complete text of the Nairobi Statement is posted at the Lutheran World Federation website. It was also published in Christian Worship: Unity in Cultural Diversity, ed. S. Anita Stauffer (Geneva: Lutheran World Federation, 1996).
We encourage worshipers and worship leaders to reflect on it as they consider the context and challenges of their culture, and answer God's call to worship within it and minister to it.
Deeper Church: Preaching and Worship to Shape Us as Communities of Tenderness (A Jazz Homily)
An evening of music and spoken word with Mark Glanville, accompanied by a jazz trio, reflecting on how preaching and worship can form deeper churches in a post-Christian context.
Seeing Christ in the Face of the Other: Singing the Psalms for Reconciliation with Karen Campbell
In 2020, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland published the book Considering Grace, which narrates the stories of 120 people and their proximity to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Though clergy were applauded for often acting as first responders to the victims, wider questions regarding the denomination were raised. Could they have spoken up more and been a prophetic voice? In response, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland commissioned Karen Campbell to convene groups to produce a suite of songs, prayers, and liturgies from the psalms of lament to be used in congregational settings to voice lament, confess complicity, and raise deeper questions surrounding justice. This workshop will discuss the process involved and the questions raised and will include some of the songs, liturgies, and prayers that were produced.In 2020, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland published the book Considering Grace, which narrates the stories of 120 people and their proximity to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Though clergy were applauded for often acting as first responders to the victims, wider questions regarding the denomination were raised. Could they have spoken up more and been a prophetic voice?
Deeper Church: Preaching and Worship to Shape Us as Communities of Tenderness (A Jazz Homily)
An evening of music and spoken word with Mark Glanville, accompanied by a jazz trio, reflecting on how preaching and worship can form deeper churches in a post-Christian context.
Seeing Christ in the Face of the Other: Singing the Psalms for Reconciliation with Karen Campbell
In 2020, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland published the book Considering Grace, which narrates the stories of 120 people and their proximity to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Though clergy were applauded for often acting as first responders to the victims, wider questions regarding the denomination were raised. Could they have spoken up more and been a prophetic voice? In response, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland commissioned Karen Campbell to convene groups to produce a suite of songs, prayers, and liturgies from the psalms of lament to be used in congregational settings to voice lament, confess complicity, and raise deeper questions surrounding justice. This workshop will discuss the process involved and the questions raised and will include some of the songs, liturgies, and prayers that were produced.In 2020, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland published the book Considering Grace, which narrates the stories of 120 people and their proximity to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Though clergy were applauded for often acting as first responders to the victims, wider questions regarding the denomination were raised. Could they have spoken up more and been a prophetic voice?
A workshop which shows participants how to preach genre-conscious sermons from the book of Psalms. Attention will be given to historical, literary, and theological issues with the aim of improving hermeneutical, generical, and homiletical practice. Participants, including hearers of sermons, will expand their knowledge of the psalms as a genre, develop genre-conscious forms and structures, and cultivate new strategies for homiletical practice.
