1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2025 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Full service YouTube playlist.
Prelude
Opening Song: “Welcome into this Place” (Orlando Juarez)
Welcome and Call to Worship
Blessing
Words of Praise
Songs of Praise: “The Church’s One Foundation”
Sung Call to Confession: “Withholding Nothing” (William McDowell)
Prayer of Confession
Assurance of Pardon
Prayer for Illumination
Psalm 118: “The Lord’s Become Our Salvation” (Wendell Kimbrough and Greg Scheer)
Scripture: 1 Peter 2:4–12
Sermon
Prayer of Application
Song of Response: “Your Labor Is Not in Vain” (Wendell Kimbrough)
Prayers of the People
Closing Song: “Joy” (VaSawn Mitchell)
Charge and Blessing
Announcements
Postlude
We are grateful for the planning and leading of this service by Wendell Kimbrough, David Lerner, Nikki Lerner, Northwestern Drama Ministries Ensemble, Greg Scheer, Kathleen Turner, and Forrest Wakeman; Karen Campbell, preaching
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
Why and how did psalm singing become such a hallmark of Reformed worship? Join Dr. Karin Maag for a fascinating journey through time, from Reformation Geneva to Scotland and from the Netherlands to New England, exploring the roots and impact of metrical psalm singing. Along the way, we will hear the voices of early modern Christians as they learned how to sing the psalms, both in unison and in harmony.
Sister Kathleen Harmon of the community of the Ohio province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton, invites us to be transformed by the psalms and experience them as the whole story God is revealing to us. As we keep praying and singing them, the psalms interpret us, and that’s when the transformation comes.
Vinroy D. Brown Jr.—conductor, musicologist, educator, and minister of creative worship and music at the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City—explores the vibrant intersection of Black sacred music and the psalms. He talks about Black composers and how they have reimagined the psalms through choral music, spirituals, and the gospel tradition for the benefit of everyone.
John Goldingay, an Anglican priest and the senior professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, posits the psalms are the densest material in the entire Old Testament. They expound the nature of God as the compassionate, faithful, and committed one, but also as the one who makes demands upon us. The psalms help us talk to God, even about difficult things—and when we do, we are talking to someone who is in a position to do something about it.
