Published on
August 26, 2019
Video length
1 mins
These video excerpts come from a conversation between Douglas J. Brouwer and John D. Witvliet at the annual Calvin Institute of Christian Worship— CICW—grants colloquium in June 2019.

Douglas J. Brouwer served nearly forty years as a Presbyterian pastor. He retired in 2018 from the International Protestant Church in Zurich, Switzerland, and now lives near Holland, Michigan. This conversation at the CICW annual grants event in 2019 marked the end of his eighteen-year service on the Vital Worship Grants Advisory Board.

The entire fifty-minute conversation covered pastoral ministry, learning to listen well, insights from Brouwer’s many books, vocation in retirement, and more.

Witvliet and Brouwer talked most about how “pastoral imagination” influences pastors, mentors, congregations, and grant projects. Theologian Craig Dykstra coined the term during his years as senior vice president at the Lilly Endowment Inc. Vital Worship Grants are made possible through the generous support of Lilly Endowment Inc.

Pastoral imagination

To learn more about pastoral imagination, read Dykstra’s essay “Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination” in For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education, and Christian Ministry, eds. Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra, pp. 41–61.

Pastoral imagination in grant proposals

Mentoring and pastoral imagination

The vocation of writing while pastoring

Related books: Beyond “I Do”: What Christians Believe about Marriage and How to Become a Multicultural Church, reviewed here.

Learning to love listening

The importance of blessing people

How to lead healthy change well

Vocation in retirement

Recent Media Resources

Video Music/Song
Playing Well with Others: Musical Collaboration in the Worship Service

Musical collaboration in worship can be rewarding: it can build relationships, enrich the musical life of a congregation, and add more colors, timbres, and textures. 

July 15, 2025 | 1 min video
Video Faith Formation
Public Worship, Health Care, and Illness in Early Christianity

Explore how Christians in the earliest centuries of Christianity preached and prayed about illness, pain, and health care and shaped practices of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and funerals in response to illness and injury, including during pandemics—all so that we can learn from their pastoral, theological, and practical instincts as we seek to be faithful witnesses to Christ in our own globally diverse contexts. ​ 

July 15, 2025 | 1 min video
Video Cultural Diversity Service/Vesper
Morning Prayer with Nate Glasper and the 7:9 Project

Nate Glasper and the 7:9 Project, a multicultural group of Calvin University students, lead a time of morning song and prayer firmly grounded in scripture. Inspired by the vision of Revelation 7:9, this gathering reflects the beauty of “every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

July 15, 2025 | 1 min video