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.
Hyun Woo Kim
To empower Asian American churches to embrace their cultural heritage, reconcile intergenerational differences, and re-envision worship in ways that reflect their congregants’ diverse identities and experiences by integrating Asian cultural elements into Western hymnody and worship frameworks.
Roland De Vries
To develop a seminary course and book chapter on interculturality in homiletics to equip preachers and emerging preachers to address the increasingly intercultural nature of their communities.
Jonathan J. Hehn
To foster appreciation for the worship practices of Presbyterian and Reformed Christians around the world through an anthropological study of Korean and Taiwanese Presbyterian liturgical practices and the dynamic exchange between those church communities and their North American siblings.
Katie Graber
To help communities critically engage questions about why we sing diverse music and how we can do it justly by collaboratively creating a hymnal companion-style volume that aids North American communities as they sing songs from around the world.
Ruth Elaine Labeth
To study the composition of scripture-based songs in Creole churches in Guadeloupe to help worship leaders and pastors envision culturally contextualized worship.
Alexander Jun
To build on previous research in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities by examining the role of chapel leaders in shaping chapel content and culture in order to demonstrate how chapel services shape the culture for diverse attendees.
Marcell Silva Steuernagel
To engage in ethnographic research in collaboration with congregations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in order to promote integrative ecclesial environments that bridge the racial divide between White, Black, and Latinx constituencies.
Sarah Travis
To create and field-test a preaching and liturgical resource addressing reconciliation among Settler Canadians and Indigenous peoples for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, based on two Calls to Action from the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Alexander Jun
To study the experience of students of color in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities, and to assess the influence of chapel worship practices on the stated goals of these institutions with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Monique M. Ingalls
To conduct ethnographic fieldwork of interethnic gospel choirs and to identity promising strategies for how worship music can build "convivial" interethnic congregational cultures.
