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.
Becki Graves
To celebrate the diversity of Christianity through exploring the contemplative, Holiness, Evangelical, social justice, charismatic, and incarnational expressions of the Church as part of the process of creating original artistic, poetic, and musical stations of the cross to share in local churches.
Jonathan Calvillo
To examine how hip-hop can be a resource for building spiritual community among Latinx diaspora by modeling how to integrate experiences of race, social engagement, and spiritual support in ministry with youth.
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.
Harold Dorrell Briscoe
To research the historical and sociopolitical significance of Negro spirituals in movements of liberation, and to demonstrate through workshops, concerts, and an immersive learning trip how these spirituals can enrich modern Christian worship practices.
Becca Whitla
To equip the Canadian church to use congregational song to further reconciliation between settlers and Indigenous peoples and to address questions relevant to the Canadian context through a conference and the development of shareable resources.
Jeffrey Allen Murdock
To encourage more inclusive and vibrant worship experiences for Christian communities by developing resources for Black sacred music programs about the historical and cultural influences on the genre, then equipping sacred music scholars and practitioners to diversify worship music selections, educate congregations, and perform Black sacred music in a variety of contexts.
J. J. Wright
To create and workshop an original musico-dramatic composition and production of five scenes from resurrection accounts to enable undergraduate students in the Folk Choir to contemplate healing and forgiveness.
Donté Ford
To uplift the hymnody of twentieth-century Holiness reformer and prolific hymn-writer Bishop Charles Price Jones, and to reinvigorate its use within and beyond the Black Church through crafting arrangements and featuring them at choral clinics, thus enriching the historical, cultural, and theological breadth of local church choir music and congregational song.
Donté Ford
To uplift the hymnody of twentieth-century Holiness reformer and prolific hymnwriter Bishop Charles Price Jones and to reinvigorate its use within and beyond the Black church by crafting arrangements and featuring them at choral clinics, thus enriching the historical, cultural, and theological breadth of local church choir music and congregational song.
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.
Shannan Baker
To pilot a contemporary worship training program focused on discovering the best educational methods for teaching contemporary worship, by engaging in workshops on technology, music, and theology.
Adam Perez
To assess the distribution and reception of popular worship songs and the relationship between the worship music industry and local worship practitioners, in order to equip practitioners with a deeper understanding of the forces that impact their worship song selections.
