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From “I’ll Fly Away” to “You Know My Name,” gospel music over the generations has helped musicians, choirs, and congregations embody faith in God’s promises and provisions. Nate Glasper describes how gospel music’s main genres comprise “academic, theological, historical, and cultural scholarship expressed through sound.”
Universal design and Vertical Habits help create church worship that touches all our senses and is accessible to all worshipers.
Directing a gospel choir can help singers express their own culture or learn from other cultures. Nate Glasper shares tips for helping gospel choir members grow through mentorship and skillful directing so that they live a lifestyle of worship.
Amy Peeler is part of a movement calling us to bring our whole selves to scripture. As a white woman, her perspective offers insight while also urging her to learn from others. She reminds us that both the wounds and the gifts of our identities shape how we read and find comfort in God’s word.
Reading the Bible closely raises questions shaped by our race, class, gender, culture, and more. Recognizing how culture—including White culture—influences interpretation helps us learn from others and see our own blind spots.
Sociologist Jonathan Calvillo researches how hip-hop gives Christians in and beyond the church agency to deal with real-life issues and shape their faith and spirituality.
Sociologist Jonathan Calvillo grew up in Latinx Pentecostal churches where church leaders made room for young Christians to express themselves through hip-hop. His life experiences and research explore what churches can learn from hip-hop creatives.
A Bethel University grant project blessed Catholics and Protestants in the greater South Bend area of Northern Indiana. It used Richard Foster’s six streams of Christian tradition to create Via Crucis, an experience of the stations of the cross with visual art, music, poetry, and more.
Want to help your community spend more time with the psalms? With so many resources to choose from, how do you find the right ones for your context? The team at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) is here to help. We keep this page updated with our top recommendations.
Scholar Kai Ton Chau makes the case that churches should support worship leaders by giving them opportunities to learn and grow in their jobs.
A sacred music grant project helped Catholic parishioners from many ethnicities—Anglo, Eritrean, Filipino, Latino, Nigerian, Vietnamese, and more—experience the awe and mystery of faith and God.
Intra-dynamic preaching is a new mode of preaching that promises to immerse people in God’s living word. It uses the form and language of specific art types to design sermons that resonate in people’s heads, hearts, imaginations, and bodies. Sunggu A. Yang edited a practical handbook to help preachers encounter God in scripture and aesthetically recreate that experience for listeners.
