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 deeply form worshipers through the structure of the liturgy by collaboratively writing songs for the elements of the liturgy.
To invite people into the biblical story in worship and to broaden their vocabulary for interacting with God using visual art as a focal point.
To use the arts to explore every aspect of worship to invite all people into the presence of the beauty, majesty, mystery, and holiness of the triune God.
To foster intergenerational and interracial discipleship by writing daily liturgies together that connect with the weekly liturgies of corporate worship.
To develop intentional worship models for military congregations that remove barriers to those who are experiencing PTSD and to facilitate connection through prayer.
To promote the role of visual and performing arts in the liturgy as a means of meeting God in worship, by providing opportunities for artists to lead the congregation.
To help worshipers live into the salvation story in the liturgical year by participating in collaborative art-making that will be incorporated into corporate worship.
To draw mutually enriching connections between worship and social justice by crafting worship elements that flow out of and deepen worshipers’ participation in justice ministries.
To explore the history of liturgical practices in the church's worship in order to be formed by those practices and to authentically integrate them into the church's worship life.
To deepen worshipers’ practice of joy in a community marked by suffering by creating Psalm-influenced liturgical art together.
To strengthen the role of testimony in worship by helping worshipers tell their stories through visual art, original song, and written narrative.
To teach worshipers to engage art as an act of worship and to engage in Christian art-making, in order to better participate in the liturgy with body, mind, and soul.
