Calvin Institute Receives $7 Million

January 24, 2008 == MEDIA ADVISORY

Summary: The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship has received a $7 million
grant for worship renewal locally, nationally and internationally.

Full story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2007-08/worship-grant.htm
 
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship is set to embark on its second
decade of programming with new opportunities to shape national and
international conversations about Christian worship practices.

And it will use a new $7 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to do so.

Institute director John D. Witvliet said that Calvin’s Worship Institute was
first funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indianapolis-based private
philanthropic foundation, in 1998 and has received significant funding from
Lilly Endowment ever since.

“We are deeply grateful for this generous support,” said Calvin College
President Gaylen Byker. “It enables us to live out Calvin’s commitment to
contribute to vital Christian practices in a variety of settings across North
America and beyond.”

This most recent grant, which takes effect this month, will enable the Calvin
Institute of Christian Worship to build on what it has learned as it looks at
the future of Christian worship.

"In our culture,” Witvliet said, “it's so tempting for worship to be
celebrity driven on the one hand, or to simply continue passively on automatic
pilot on the other. We are eager to support and encourage the thousands of
Christian leaders in all kinds of congregations that work to resist those
temptations."

But, Witvliet added, the CICW does not want to be defined by what it is
against.

Instead the CICW has postulated a sort of worship 10 commandments, what it
calls its “10 core convictions about worship.” These are items, Witvliet
said, that focus squarely on the core of authentic, meaningful Christian
worship, and call congregations to ask better questions about what they are
trying to accomplish in worship.

In the 10 years of its existence, the Worship Institute has given more than
450 grants to congregations and other groups interested in worship, welcomed
over 15,000 people to its conferences and training events, welcomed guests from
over 40 countries, and produced more than 30 books and an extensive website
(www.calvin.edu/worship) -- all in partnership with more than 70 current and
former Calvin College faculty and staff, over 300 other conference presenters
and writers, and over two dozen other ecumenical organizations, publishers,
colleges, denominations, and seminaries.

But the institute, Witvliet stressed, is about more than raw numbers,
including the recent $7 million grant.

"We are much more interested in having a single congregation discover the
life-changing joy and profound significance of authentic Christian worship than
simply perpetuating conferences and publications for their own sake. All of our
work is directed toward renewed vitality in Christian worship and living.”

Contact Witvliet at 616-526-6806

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Received on Thu Jan 24 09:14:53 2008