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
David M. Cherwien and The Choral Scholars will lead this service of song and prayer centered around the botanical images of Christ and his people found in scripture.
In this final worship service, Jared Alcantara will preach on Ezekiel 47, “A Trickle of Ever-Growing Hope.” As we dwell with these images of hope after a hard time, we will be led by Calvin University choirs directed by Pearl Shangkuan. Organist David Cherwien will participate as well.
Mark Labberton will preach “The Prophetic Call and First Messages” based on Ezekiel 1–2. Other worship service participants include Alexis VanZalen, the Grand Rapids Christian High School band, Katie Ritsema Roelofs, Joel Littlepage, Kimberly Williams, Brian Hehn and Justin Fung.
Led in Korean and English by the Woodlawn Christian Reformed Church Choir, directed by Chan Gyu Jang; the Living Water Church Worship Team, directed by Yohan Lee; and members of the Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary Korean communities. Anne Zaki will preach on Ezekiel 10–11, “God’s Glory Departs from Israel.”
Kevin Adams explores the beautiful gifts of framing words for worship—the “conversation of worship”—that are lifegiving and engaging.
Luke Powery encourages preachers and worshipers to embrace the space and place the church provides to ask questions as a faithful way of Christian discipleship and engaging with God.
Sarah Travis explores how Christian worship, through its rhythm of Gathering, Word, Table, and Sending, both unsettles us and equips us to do the work of conciliation and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Lisa Allen offers an approach to worship planning that centers on the transformative power of holistic biblical worship.
Sarah Kathleen Johnson and Andrew Wymer, two Free Church scholars in worship and liturgical studies, break new ground in “Worship and Power”, a book edited with other scholars in this tradition, and celebrate what these insights offer for ecumenical conversation and learning around liturgical authority.
Paul Louis Metzger shares about the formative nature of the church calendar, which emphasizes that Christ in the fullness of time is what shapes us and how we inhabit time.
For more than 25 years, Ron Man has been teaching on the biblical foundations of worship. He gathers up that learning in his book “Let Us Draw Near”, a testimony to the power of scripture to guide pastors and worshipers in our calling to be worshipers of God.
In a world filled with violence, injustice, and despair, the Advent and Christmas gospel comes, wondrously, with two strands of promise: one that touches neighborhoods racked in violence, one that is as intimate as our own interior lives, so often hidden from everyone but God. Both strands of promise are conveyed in a single common word with breathtaking scope: “Peace.”
