The Au Sable Institute is one of 41 grantees of the 2020-21 Vital Worship Grants Program through the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. All projects share a common purpose to both deepen people’s understanding of worship and strengthen practices of public worship and faith formation.
Kathy Smith, leader of the Vital Worship Grants Team, said, “We are grateful to award these new grants, even in this time of the pandemic crisis, trusting these projects will serve to encourage vital worship in new ways and support another group of churches, schools and organizations, even in these difficult times. We were grateful for a large number of excellent proposals and are eager to facilitate their learning and ours, regarding worship across North America.”
Au Sable will use the grant to implement a year-long exploration process that identifies elements of worship and daily practices that lead to long-term spiritual formation in a community of college students who are interested in careers in the environmental sciences. Specifically, the project will be used to explore and answer the following questions:
Are there elements and themes of worship that are especially compelling, relevant and meaningful to our students?
Are there habits and practices of spiritual development that Au Sable is uniquely positioned to help students develop during their time on campus?
Are there tools and resources that can be used to help us stay connected to students once they leave campus and support their continued engagement with worship and spiritual development ?
In addition to Au Sable, this year’s grant recipients include 30 congregations, one secondary school, two colleges and universities, one seminary, and seven other groups, including a church-run preschool, two denominationally-affiliated ministries, a retirement community, a neighborhood ministry, and a campus ministry. They also represent 19 different Christian denominations, 19 states and two Canadian provinces.
Since it began in the year 2000, the Vital Worship Grants Program has now awarded 944 grants to churches, schools, organizations, and teacher-scholars across North America for projects that generate thoughtfulness and energy for public worship and faith formation at the local, grass-roots level. An advisory board of pastors and teachers from a variety of backgrounds assists in the grant selections, and the program is generously supported by Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. Founded in 1937, the Endowment’s major areas of programming are religion, education, and community development.
For more information on the grants program, including a complete list of this year’s grants recipients, please see worship.calvin.edu/grants.