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
College and seminary professors offer church observation guides for their students. You can use their insights to learn more when you visit other churches. This process can also help you understand how people experience liturgical practices in your own congregation.
Musicians who lead worship are not merely performers, directors, coordinators, or music industry peddlers. We are primarily pastoral people—priestly leaders who shape the prayers and acclamations of God’s people.
Many people with autism spectrum disorder find joy, security, and comfort in familiar patterns. We can also take great delight in the perfect match that exists within many of our corporate worship patterns. Take an individual who delights in patterns, structure, and “sameness,” and you have a recipe for a joyful worshiper.
Volume in worship can be a touchy subject, one full of tensions. However, by looking at it through the lens of Universal Design and applying this principle to volume, we can see the many tensions in play and work together to glorify the Lord and lead God's people in song.
Scripture models well for us how to speak about immigration in worship. Together, with Abraham, Jesus, and the early church, we can model radical hospitality, we can lament the pain of leaving and the pain of the journey, we can witness God's faithfulness to the refugees and migrants in the past, and together, united as the body of Christ, we can seek responses that reflect God's heart. Ultimately, we can look forward with hope, knowing that our "citizenship is in heaven."
This workshop presents an ethnographic study describing the experiences of stroke survivors in their church communities and two worship services planned for these participants.
Baptists living in what is now Belarus have experienced war, shifting borders, persecution and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Their history gives them a unique perspective on what it means to follow Christ and suffer for him.
Barbara Newman shares how the entire worshiping community benefits from worship services that are designed and led with the goal of including everyone.
Sometimes it’s awkward for Christians of different cultures to talk together about God’s presence in slavery. Eric Washington provides a way forward.
Six church musicians and scholars explain why treasures and challenges in African American worship traditions apply to churches in any cultural context.
Catholic and Orthodox Christians consider Epiphanius of Cyprus a saint because he was pious and opposed heresy. Protestants can learn from him as well.
Pope Francis recently said "Christians are not made in a laboratory, but in a community called the church." But what about those people for whom the church has been a source of pain?
