1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2025 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
This worship service features music led by the Calvin University Capella and the Hope College Chapel Choir, directed by Mark Stover and Eric Reyes and accompanied by organist Rhonda Sider Edgington. Nicole Massie Martin gives the sermon on the persistent widow of Luke 18:1-8.
This service was originally recorded at the 2025 Calvin Symposium on Worship.
Service Outline:
Sung Prayer: “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying”
Text and Music: Ken Medema © 1973 Hope Publishing Company
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Call to Worship
God’s Greeting
Song: “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”
Text: Henry F. Lyte, 1834
Music: LAUDA ANIMA; John Goss, 1869; arr. Larry Visser © 2015 GIA Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Prayer of Confession
Silent Prayer
Choral Prayer of Confession: “Precious Lord”
Text and Music: Thomas A. Dorsey; arr. Arnold Sevier © 1938 Unichappell Music, Inc.; arr. © 1996 Unichappell Music, Inc.
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Assurance of Pardon
Sung Response: “O Love”
Text: George Matheson (1842-1906)
Music: Elaine Hagenberg © 2016 Beckenhorst Press, Inc.
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture Reading: Luke 18:1-8
Sermon
Sung Response: “With What Shall I Come”
Text: based on Micah 6:6-8
Music: Rosephanye Powell © 2023 Gentry Publications, admin. Fred Bock Publishing Group
Used by permission. CCLI #400063.
Prayers of the People
Song: “Abana in Heaven”
Text and Music: Laila Constantine, Lebanon © 2002 Songs of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt, Council of Pastoral Work and Evangelism, admin. Faith Alive Christian Resources; tr. and adapt. Anne Emile Zaki, Emily R. Brink, Greg Scheer, and Maged Dakouk © 2008, 2012 Faith Alive Christian Resources.
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Blessing
Sending Song: “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service”
Text: Albert F. Bayly, alt., © 1988 Oxford University Press
Music: PLEADING SAVIOR; J. Leavitt’s Christian Lyre, 1830; harm. stanzas 1-2 Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906; harm. stanzas 3-4 and descant, Larry Visser, 2024 © 2025 Larry Visser
All rights reserved. OneLicense.net A-703303.
Sending
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
