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Worship Renewal Grant Recipients—Year 2006

You can view posters displayed at Colloquium for grant recipients from the years 2003-2008. Click on the organization's name for an image of the poster. (You may need to zoom in to read the text on the poster.)

Albany Presbytery, Watervliet, New York To create ongoing inter-church planning teams that reflect on the lectionary and develop metaphors to use in visual media for worship.

Althoff Catholic High School, Belleville, Illinois To enhance participation in the celebration of the sacraments and prayer services both in school and local parishes through providing music and liturgical training for children and youth, their teachers, music directors, principals and pastors.

Amazing Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Baltimore, Maryland To offer weekly worship services based on the 12 steps of addiction recovery that integrates scripture, confession and absolution, testimony, healing liturgy and public prayer in two urban churches.

Ascension Lutheran Church, Paradise Valley, Arizona To link artist, theologian and worshiper in faith conversation and theological reflection that acknowledges art as a language with power to strengthen spiritual formation and results in the creation of art for worship.

Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana, Austin, Texas To share the wealth of worship materials with deep roots in Hispanic culture and traditions and to promote critical theological reflection on these materials by bringing together Hispanic worship leaders from multiple denominations for study and worship.

Believers Christian Fellowship Church, New York, New York To provide lunchtime and after work worship services and classes on Wall Street and in Harlem which encourage active participation of worshipers in reading scripture and leading worship and music through a multi-ethnic, multi-discipline collaborative effort.

Bridge Community Church, Langley, British Columbia To explore contemplation, outreach, hospitality, unity and leadership in worship through monthly seminars for the congregation and community.

Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia To enhance capacity of students and faculty for reflective liturgical leadership and to promote worship planning and participation as an integral part of theological education at the school.

Choristers Guild, Garland, Texas To teach children’s choir leaders the history and use of congregational song and how to integrate children into worship leadership by partnering nationally-recognized church music clinicians with children’s choir directors.

Christian Student Foundation, Muncie, Indiana To provide student leaders the skills and experience needed to plan and lead worship services through a leadership retreat, peer mentoring program and workshops.

Church of the Ascension, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania To reflect corporately on the meaning and purpose of worship, including worship designed for the emergent sub-culture, through a parish retreat and a diocesan-wide leadership workshop.

City Hope Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan To learn about worship and develop practical and innovative resources for worship which use the unique and varied gifts of four diverse congregations.

Community Recovery International, Grand Rapids, Michigan To offer weekly recovery services which encourage the use of artistic talents and personal testimonies that express God’s grace and forgiveness so that worship becomes the foundation of the healing process.

Diocesan Worship Directors of Michigan, Detroit, Michigan To provide liturgical formation for those involved in parish liturgical ministry with a concerted effort to identify and mentor young adults who will participate as liturgical leaders in the church.

Edgewater Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois To create new resources for worship which reflect the diversity of the congregation, including the chronically mentally ill and immigrants from numerous countries, in order to unite the worshiping community.

Faith United Church of Christ, International Falls, Minnesota To prepare and implement resources for worship that include music, media and visual arts, liturgical movement, creative writing and drama through the creation of an interdenominational, intergenerational worship arts team.

First Congregational United Church of Christ, Washington, D.C. To equip lay leaders to present scripture and multicultural music in worship and to kindle imagination about the design of the new worship space as part of the redevelopment of downtown Washington, D.C.

First Presbyterian Church, Schoolcraft, Michigan To develop fresh, participatory ways to experience preaching, music, scripture and the sacraments through a series of seminars for their congregation and six nearby collaborating congregations.

First Presbyterian Church of Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach, Florida To celebrate the rich heritage of the congregation and embrace its diversity and multicultural growth, which includes more than 100 people from 11 nations, through theologically-driven visual arts workshops and interactive educational classes that will create resources for worship.

Friends of the Groom, Terrace Park, Ohio To equip five congregations to incorporate Vertical Habits into their worship life by offering workshops that combine theater, scripture, personal/theological reflection and worship traditions and by providing follow-up meetings and a newsletter that will create community, support and an exchange of ideas among the participating churches.

Good Shepherd Christian Reformed Church, Prospect Park, New Jersey To partner with a nearby congregation to equip youth and adults to plan, lead and participate in worship through a study of Reformed worship, the varied global and historical expressions of Christian worship, and how these address the unique needs of a primarily Hispanic immigrant community.

Grace Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan To introduce liturgical dance and movement into worship in their racially, economically and educationally diverse urban congregation.

Grace Episcopal Church, Newton Corner, Massachusetts To engage children in worship by teaching them about their worship tradition, about scripture embodied in the three year cycle of readings and about the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist.

Grace Lutheran Church, Hockessin, Delaware To call people to a more complete understanding of worship and to a life of prayer using traditional forms of evening and morning prayer, introducing the principles and patterns of worship and implementing new resources of worship and prayer in the congregation and surrounding congregations.

Granite Springs Church, Lincoln, California To saturate their new congregation with a rhythm of Bible memorization that supports spiritual formation and an integration of scripture into every aspect of the worship service with attention to multigenerational participation.

Hillside Community Church, Calgary, Alberta To develop the connection between worship and discipleship through engaging people of varying degrees of spiritual experience in fundamental worship activities and concepts.

Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Kennebunk, Maine To explore the use of new music, liturgical art and drama in worship that will engage the entire human experience of body, soul, mind, and spirit.

Houghton College, Houghton, New York To encourage full, active, conscious participation in worship by exploring a broad range of music that includes traditional and newer hymnody, fostering understanding and dialogue between those whose musical tastes are vastly different, deepening the understanding of the Trinity in worship, and matching the rhythm of worship with the liturgical calendar.

Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia To train and equip worship leaders in African American contexts through studying biblical, theological, and socio-cultural paradigms for worship and music, facilitating dialogue between music and worship faculty and students at ITC and local worship leaders, exploring Black sacred music genres and encouraging cultural diversity in worship.

Lake View Lutheran Church, Chicago, Illinois To incorporate lay leaders of all ages in planning and leading worship around themes of justice and mercy to meet the needs of the surrounding urban community.

LOGOS System Associates, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania To help children explore and experience worship through enhancing resources for children in worship and creating a framework to help congregations implement the resources.

Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, Blacksburg, Virginia To study worship history and renewal in a series of retreats and seminars with leaders of six local churches of various denominations and to use the results of this study to create a plan for worship renewal in each of these congregations.

Lutheran Community Church, Watsonville, California To provide ongoing training for musicians, choirs, worship leaders, and the congregation through developing a bilingual liturgy, hymn book, and other printed resources as well as creating multicultural art and symbols for the multicultural worship environment.

Lutheran Music Program, Minneapolis, Minnesota To extend the experience of the summer music and faith program to the greater community by helping students form yearlong mentorships with pastors or other worship leaders in their home congregations so that the youth will become fully integrated into the worship life of their congregation.

Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, Tennessee To explore the meaning of art in worship as well as to experiment with forms of art and ways to incorporate that art in the ongoing worship life of area congregations.

Muskegon Christian School, Muskegon, Michigan To design worship and curriculum that emphasizes the unity of the body of Christ and the richness of differing worship styles across racial and cultural lines through building relationships with families and the worship team of Angel Community Church.

New Hope Covenant Church, Oakland, California To explore and nurture contextualized worship in an urban church with multi-racial and multi-class membership through consulting with urban and Southeast Asian churches, studying questions about worship and encouraging youth to learn traditional Southeast Asian instruments.

New Hope Lutheran Ministries, Vandergrift, Pennsylvania To train youth to create and lead worship in music, proclamation, and liturgy and to help congregation members to more deeply appreciate the needs, concerns, and life of youth both in the church and the community.

New Life Christian Fellowship, Castro Valley, California To introduce multisensory worship, to study the meaning of the seasons of Advent and Lent, to invite Asian American congregants, especially children and youth, to learn about Asian puppetry and create puppets and dramas with seasonal themes, and to integrate this learning in worship services during Advent and Lent.

North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies, Winnipeg, Manitoba To develop culturally relevant worship that is fully rooted in the Christian scriptures and integrally connected to the cultural traditions and sociocultural understandings of the Native American community through monthly gatherings that will include presentations of native dance and song, the development of communion and marriage rituals, and the exploration of other liturgical and ceremonial needs.

Office of Worship, Diocese of Honolulu, Kaneohe, Hawaii To gather clergy and laity from six remote Hawaiian islands to study the history and theology of liturgical worship so they may assist their worshiping community in participation in the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist.

Sandersville United Methodist Church, Sandersville, Georgia To discover the rich significance of the Lord’s Supper through participating in guided learning experiences that encourage creative response, such as visual and dance interpretations of Wesley hymns based on the Eucharist.

Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington To express diverse, global, and ecumenical worship through education, practice, collaboration, and community involvement in training seminars, cross-disciplinary conversations, and liturgical art.

Second Christian Reformed Church, Grand Haven, Michigan To explore the creative use of the existing worship space as well as to define and expand the usage of that space through intergenerational study and dialogue on worship.

Shawnee Park Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan To empower young people to add rhythm, melody, and harmony to familiar and favorite Scripture passages with the goal of incorporating the resulting music in weekly worship services.

Sherman Street Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan To collaborate as a group of pastors and youth leaders in urban Grand Rapids to learn about the dynamics of worship in relationship to urban youth and hip hop and to explore the possibilities of incorporating their discoveries into the wider worshiping body.

St Stephens Lutheran Church, El Dorado Hills, California To create multigenerational worship teams that engage in an educational process to learn from each other and work together to plan and lead weekly worship services.

The King's University College, Edmonton, Alberta To increase understanding of Christian worship in diverse settings, improve worship planning and leadership skills, strengthen spiritual life leadership, and help sustain worship practices across cycles of leadership transition through an interdisciplinary process of reflection and learning, skills training, and resource gathering that will result in a compilation of songs, prayers, readings, and testimonies contributed by the faculty, staff and students of King’s University.

The Leadership Program for Musicians, Saginaw, Michigan To develop a training program that will prepare people to teach the Leadership Program for Musicians, a series of classes on music in worship, to ecumenical groups throughout the United States.

The Outdoor Church of Cambridge, Lexington, Massachusetts To offer worship services and discussion of scripture led by clergy, congregation members and seminary students for homeless men and women, many of whom have substance abuse problems or are chronically mentally ill.

The River, Whitinsville, Massachusetts To train youth and children in planning, leading, and facilitating intergenerational worship services that integrate art, dance, drama, scripture, story, and song.

Trinity Episcopal Church, Rochester, New York To train congregants to tell both the biblical stories and their own faith story in fresh and lively ways through drama, images, movement, and storytelling in corporate worship.

Trinity Lutheran Church, Lakewood, Ohio To collaborate with congregations of all denominations through a series of workshops focusing on music in worship, biblical storytelling, liturgical art, and contemplative methods that allow all congregations to share their talents and best worship practices.

United Theological Seminary, Trotwood, Ohio To design a process of catechism for those seeking baptism or confirmation in six diverse United Methodist congregations such that both the catechumenate and the congregations are renewed through the Easter Vigil celebration.

Unity Christian Reformed Church, Prinsburg, Minnesota To learn about how the design of a worship space teaches, invites, inspires, and connects in order to foster versatile, multigenerational, mission-focused, biblical worship in a growing rural church.

University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas To explore biblical themes of justice and peacemaking through education, fellowship, and theological reflection and to express these themes in corporate worship such that they lead to community service.

Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin To gather information and establish a common set of expectations and values for worship services, to identify planning models that work within the framework of shared responsibility, and to implement these guidelines and models in the long-range planning of a year of worship services.

Click here for information on the Worship Renewal Grants Program.