1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2025 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Through spirituals, freedom narratives, conversion accounts, and Black preaching, enslaved African Americans shared the embodied hope of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Like Paul, they proclaimed that the power of the cross of Christ should advance how the church participates in and quests for a more just and equitable world.
Probably every Christian knows that Paul preached about the power of the cross of Christ for personal salvation. But Christians often miss Paul’s discourse on the power of the cross of Christ to bring about social transformation. Reclaiming the full power of the cross should bring about unity and equality—in body, soul, mind, spirit, and voice—in the body of Christ and society.
Many Christians think that how they acquire and use money is peripheral to the gospel. Relatively few preachers address wealth and poverty in their sermons. Yet early Christianity proclaimed and practiced the countercultural value of caring for the poor. Their worship services reflected this value.
Accounts from ancient historians and early church fathers show that caring for and visiting the sick was an essential marker of what it means to be a Christian. Their example of addressing illness, pain, and health care for everyone, not just Christians, holds lessons for today’s worship planners.
Exploring African Christianity’s golden era and its continued impact on global Christianity helps Black millennials and Gen Zers see themselves in God’s redemptive history. It also provides a needed corrective to all who identify Christianity as mainly a white religion.
You might not think often about the land your church sits on or the community beyond your church property. But finding ways to learn local history and include it in worship may help church members become more faithful disciples, more meaningfully draw near to God, and reach people who are disconnected from the church.
Learning from prayer practices of the Reformation era can help congregations and families today deepen their faith, piety, and responses to current events.
This fifth session is part of “Experiencing the Contours of Early Modern Worship,” a series of five linked sessions bringing current-day participants into the world of Reformation Europe. What was it like to attend worship in Wittenberg in 1530, Geneva in 1550, London in 1570, or Venice in 1590? When people in different confessional contexts joined in worship and participated in the sacrament in this period, what differences and similarities were there? Join John Thompson [professor emeritus, Fuller Theological Seminary] and Karin Maag [Meeter Center] as they explore how pastors interpreted scripture and preached to their congregations.
This third session is part of “Experiencing the Contours of Early Modern Worship,” a series of five linked sessions bringing participants into the world of Reformation Europe. What was it like to attend worship in Wittenberg in 1530, Geneva in 1550, London in 1570, or Venice in 1590? When people in different confessional contexts joined in worship and participated in the sacrament in this period, what differences and similarities were there? Join Yudha Thianto [Calvin Theological Seminary] and Karin Maag [Meeter Center] in an encounter with the theory and practice of congregational song in the Reformation era with a particular focus on psalm-singing.
This second session is part of “Experiencing the Contours of Early Modern Worship,” a series of five linked sessions bringing current-day participants into the world of Reformation Europe. What was it like to attend worship in Wittenberg in 1530, Geneva in 1550, London in 1570, or Venice in 1590? When people in different confessional contexts joined in worship and participated in the sacraments in this period, what differences and similarities were there? Join Lyle Bierma [professor emeritus of church history, Calvin Theological Seminary] and Karin Maag [Meeter Center] as they present John Calvin's theology of baptism and the practice of this sacrament more widely across the Reformation era.
This first session is part of “Experiencing the Contours of Early Modern Worship,” a series of five linked sessions bringing participants into the world of Reformation Europe. What was it like to attend worship in Wittenberg in 1530, Geneva in 1550, London in 1570, or Venice in 1590? When people in different confessional contexts joined in worship and participated in the sacraments in this period, what differences and similarities were there? Join Meeter Center Director Karin Maag in an exploration of congregational worship in early modern Europe from the perspectives of both the clergy and the worshiping community.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches in partnership with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship leads the annual Reformation Day global worship service in Rome, Italy.
