1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA
On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2024 Calvin Institute of Christian Worship
CICW has awarded Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants for over 20 years to teacher-scholars and worshiping communities in 45+ states and provinces and across 40+ denominations and traditions—including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, non-denominational, and other Protestant communities.
While worship styles and practices vary greatly across these traditions, the grant projects typically explore at least one of CICW’s ten core convictions related to worship. Explore the hundreds of projects we’ve funded across both streams of the program.
To develop training workshops in the arts to educate the congregation on the meaning of integral worship and to develop practical workshops on music and singing for worship leaders to enhance bilingual public worship.
To educate the congregation on the twelve confessions of faith using the five senses in public worship services.
To study and apply Biblical teachings and multigenerational storytelling to enhance intergenerational worship practices and strengthen church unity.
To train the worship team on the theology of worship and on practical musical and vocal abilities.
To develop a vibrant, meaningful, an.d formative worship program for daily chapel in order to develop a shared communal identity in Christ which is rooted in the University’s acapella Church of Christ heritage and is also hospitable to all worshipers
To center worship in the seminary’s curriculum by fostering symbiotic exchange between the worship program and other departments, with emphasis on worship as a central place of formation for the whole community.
To promote genuine grace-filled hospitality in worship through a more racially, culturally, and intergenerationally sensitive worship experience that is sustained and perpetuated through a message of love, adaptability, and social engagement during the worship experience.
To promote unity and diversity in local Seventh Day Baptist congregations by gathering worship leaders to discern the transcultural, contextual, cross-cultural, and counter-culture nature of worship as they worship together in diverse ways.
To deeply integrate worship and other congregational activities so that the church’s engagement of cross-cultural relationships, education, justice, and collaboration weaves seamlessly with worship.
To promote and teach social justice-centered worship through proclamation, practice, and protest.
To engage in biblical and theological reflection, practical training, and collaboration to initiate chapel worship that promotes individual and collective formation of students around the core values of the institution.
John Ruth
To survey the present state of college and seminary instruction on the theology, history, and practice of contemporary praise and worship, and to engage scholars in conversation around recent and emerging scholarship on contemporary worship in order to create a podcast series and a curriculum guide for worship educators and church practitioners.
