1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
A renewed theology and practice of the Lord's Supper can help believers grow into a deeper and multifaceted vision of salvation. Come and explore the ways in which the Lord's Supper illuminates the gospel as participation in Christ by the Spirit.
Abraham Kuyper said that Christ is Lord over every "square inch" of life. Thanks to Our Worship, translated by Harry Boonstra and augmented by scholars' essays, you can now read Kuyper's perceptive writings on public worship.
The idea for this service began in late November 2007. As a congregation we were not planning to hold a New Year’s Eve or a New Year’s Day service. So we asked the question, "How will we begin the new year on Epiphany Sunday?"
This article encourages methodical and reflective methods of reading theological texts in order to receive greater enrichment and nourishment from them.
What makes worship "work?" Gordon T. Smith and Philip W. Butin are among a growing group of scholars who say that consistently and explicitly naming and invoking the Trinity in worship inspires renewal. A feature story exploring how Trinitarian doctrine shapes Christian Worship.
You’ve probably noticed something about worship. “We all know there are times when the Word is more profoundly proclaimed and profoundly heard,” says Philip W. Butin, president and professor of theology at San Francisco Theological Seminary and author of The Trinity.
Sharing food is fundamental to human well-being.
Should Christian worship explicitly call our attention to and direct us toward the world and its need, to social action? Or does such worship in fact turn us away from the triune God, the proper focus of our worship? This workshop will explore some ways Abraham Kuyper and Jonathan Edwards?both theologians of beauty and glory, and both very socially engaged?might point us in the right direction.
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.
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.
This workshop explored the biblical teaching on the central role that the Holy Spirit plays in worship. Dependence and freedom, order and spontaneity, reverent silence and joyful noise will be some of the paradoxes to explore in the framework of Scripture. Our purpose is to inform some of our present-day worship practices and enrich, challenge, and transform them for the glory of the Lord we worship.
This workshop focused on the formative power of the lectionary when it is read within the theological narrative of the Christian year: the story of salvation.
