1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University
© 2026 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
Explore how Christians in the earliest centuries of Christianity preached and prayed about illness, pain, and health care and shaped practices of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and funerals in response to illness and injury, including during pandemics—all so that we can learn from their pastoral, theological, and practical instincts as we seek to be faithful witnesses to Christ in our own globally diverse contexts.
How did early Christians understand and practice wealth in relation to worship/service and care of the poor?
Mark 4:34 claims Jesus never said anything to the crowds without using parables.
Raymond Wise leads this time of song, prayer, and reflection.
Many consider the author of Hebrews the most adept storyteller in the New Testament due to the epistle’s comprehensiveness and rhetorical finesse.
Listen to and learn from scholars from diverse backgrounds and cultural experiences who provided exegetical expertise and unique interpretive lenses to The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary (IVP Academic, 2024).
This vesper service features music from the soon-to-be-released Sending Songs album by the music collective Porter’s Gate. Created in collaboration with Fuller Seminary’s Worship for Workers project, this album offers songs that commission God’s people with mission and purpose into their places of work and play.
Musical collaboration in worship can be rewarding: it can build relationships, enrich the musical life of a congregation, and add more colors, timbres, and textures.
Often the task of preaching falls on the senior pastor or a few gifted speakers. However, congregations need diverse diets and voices to be nourished and equipped by the preaching of God’s word.
This expression of Psalm 148 was submitted by Ed Willmington, who wrote it with Clayton J. Schmit. The nature of Psalm 148 is total exuberance as all of nature offers praise to God.
This worship service focuses on the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. The Holland Christian High School Symphonic Orchestra, directed by Scott VandenBerg, leads the music with accompaniment from Alexis VanZalen. Calvin University’s Awakening group leads congregational singing featuring a selection of emerging bilingual Korean-English songs. Andrea Bult delivers the message, and students from Calvin University’s Ministry Leadership Cohort, alongside their mentor, Noel Snyder, guide the liturgy.
This worship service is musically led by Symposium contributor Raymond Wise and the Calvin University Gospel Choir, directed by Nate Glasper. Dennis Edwards delivers the message on Luke 16:19-31, “The Rich Man and Lazarus.”
