1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
How do you recognize each other's gifts and support each other's needs while avoiding a "you're not like us"? attitude? A feature story exploring ways to be inclusive in worship and make room for those with or without special needs.
In this workshop for new and emerging, as well as established and evolving congregations, we explored how new Christians and young children learn to relate to God, and what this teaches us about our practices of weekly congregational worship. The workshop featured insights from a number of congregations involved in a new Vertical Habits program hosted by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
Becoming a worship-centered congregation is a profound cultural shift for some congregations and often takes as much as ten years. Using leadership theory and theories of transformational learning, this workshop explored the dynamics of congregational change, resistance to change, and the role of congregational leaders in always pointing toward the worship of God as the church's highest calling.
This workshop provided practical ideas for including persons with disabilities in Sunday School classes, youth groups, and adult small groups, based on the speaker's book of the same title.
This session drew upon biblical passages and confessional and liturgical texts from the Reformed tradition to demonstrate how Christian baptism is a communal, not an individual, sacrament.
As Christian school families are learning from their kids and grand kids, high school chapel services are a lot different than they used to be--and often more appreciated as well. A feature story exploring high school chapels.
Whether they are drama leaders in a North American mega church or Catholic priests in a Mexican village, Christians everywhere wrestle with how much of culture to appropriate in worship. They debate the difference between yielding to syncretism and following Paul’s desire “to become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some”
It was just a simple email between friends--but now a Canadian congregation prays for Christians in Egypt. Your church can just as easily make congregational prayers more global. A feature story exploring the inclusion of Global concerns in our congregational prayers.
Several Christians learning together as peers will accomplish far more than one enthusiastic reader can do alone--especially when these study groups look for the Holy Spirit's guidance. A feature story exploring the benefits of Peer Learning groups.
"Isn't that what we pay staff for?"? is the dreaded question in multistaff churches. Here's advice on involving the entire congregation, not just "the pros" in worship. A feature story exploring the importance of congregational involvement in worship, especially in multistaff churches.
The growing attention paid to the "emerging church" has certainly got people talking. And whatever the "emerging church" is, it seems to be quite a chameleon.
As those who led worship at the Reformed Ecumenical Council Assembly learned, global worship involves a lot more than tossing in a song from another country or culture. A feature story exploring Global Worship.
