1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
What is confirmation or profession of faith for? Does it certify knowledge, open the communion table, affirm acceptance of baptism, mark a milestone in a continuing faith journey? A feature story exploring the meaning behind profession of faith.
How can your Christian school design chapel services that connect with real life? Mustard Seed School in Hoboken, New Jersey, has formed a model called community worship. A feature story exploring worship in one small school in New Jersey.
Churches are talking about spiritual formation and faith formation because they've seen the failure of information to form faith that changes people's inner lives and outward behaviors. A feature story exploring the switch from moralism to faith formation.
Chapel at your seminary is likely different than seminary worship is for your peers at other divinity schools. A feature story exploring different chapel practices and sharing a model for planning worship on campus.
Learn how church dynamics shift as congregations change size. A feature story exploring small churches, like All Nations Christian Reformed Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that are making the most of their size.
In what unique ways can corporate worship fuel, inspire, and respond to the academic calling of the student and teacher in higher education?
Frederick Buechner writes that people "as a rule see only what they expect to see and little more." The preacher's calling is see beyond what we expect to see and help congregations to do the same. This session discussed what the preacher can do to be faithful to this calling.
This workshop was given for those who want a deeper understanding of racial dynamics in today?s churches. Stories and examples from real congregations showed how race within churches is becoming complicated?and creatively reconstructed?through the post-1965 waves of immigration. Most important, we show how various good-intentioned priorities and programs work --and often don?t work-- in racially diverse churches.
This wide-ranging question-and-answer session discussed religious and journalistic trends in the United States with the former religion writer for Time magazine and The Associated Press.
Differing circumstances call forth different liturgical, theological and formational questions and inspire different congregational conversations about what we do in worship and why we do it. The workshop began with a PowerPoint presentation on the history of Christian worship and its relationship to spiritual formation in congregational life, concluding with 'where we are now.' Practices for spiritual formation were described in relation to the congregation's worship life.
Those who work at the intersection of the visual arts and congregational life know from experience how rich, complex, rewarding, and often messy this area can be.
This session explored an ecology of practices designed to deepen youths' participation in the Lord's Supper/Eucharist and to form them to interpret and act in the world eucharistically. Participants learned creative pedagogies for teaching youth about the Eucharist; how youth may be engaged in ministry at the Table; the importance of creating a broad ecology of liturgical and extra-liturgical Eucharistic practices through which youth may be formed; and the means to invite youths? personal and theological reflections on Eucharistic life.
