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Called to join God’s purposes for worship.

UPCOMING SESSION DATES:
  • June 2025 On-Campus Intensive Week:
    June 18-25, 2025
  • January 2026 On-Campus Intensive Week:
    January 7-14, 2026
  • June 2026 On-Campus Intensive Week:
    June 17-24, 2026
  • January 2027 On-Campus Intensive Week:
    January 6-13, 2027

What is IWS?

Earn a master’s or doctorate degree in worship studies from IWS and experience servant leadership in transformative worship.

Do you long to think more deeply, purposefully, and formationally about your own tradition’s approach to worship?

Do you desire to understand worship from a biblical and theological perspective? Do you feel unprepared to apply principles of worship in an applicable and practical way to your congregation each week? Do you need a community of like-minded worship leaders to pray and have fellowship with?

At The Institute for Worship Studies, you will accumulate more than mere head knowledge and a graduate degree in worship

— you will apply what you learn in the classroom within your own ministry context and develop lifelong friendships that encourage and inspire you in your own relationship with Jesus Christ as you lead others in Christian worship.

IWS offers two worship graduate degree programs, the Master of Worship Studies (MWS) and the Doctor of Worship Studies (DWS), and two non-degree certificate programs that are grounded in biblical theology. Courses are offered through a hybrid of on-campus intensives and distance learning to offer both a deep sense of connection among our community along with the convenience of online learning.

Mission

The Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies forms servant leaders in Christian worship renewal and education through graduate academic praxis, grounded in biblical, historical, theological, formational, cultural and missiological reflection in community.

Vision

IWS graduates will be academically and spiritually formed servant leaders who participate intentionally in the story of the Triune God, fostering renewal in the local and global church by shaping life and ministry according to the fullness of that story.

Values

We are committed to the unity of all knowledge of God’s story in history and ministry as applied theology. We do not sever ministry from God’s story, but situate it in God’s story through reflection in the biblical, historical, theological, formational, cultural, and missiological disciplines. We seek therefore to form all ministry by the Divine Narrative.

Education & Community

At IWS, you will meet other Christian leaders and teachers who share your same visions, passions, struggles, and questions. We value providing an environment that fosters and nurtures relationships over shared meals, morning chapel sessions, and evening worship workshops during the campus sessions. We are a community that prays, studies, and grows together.