Dr. John Witvliet serves as editor for three series of books—the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series (Eerdmans), Vital Worship, Healthy Congregations (Alban Institute), Church at Worship (Eerdmans)—as well as co-editor, with Pearl Shangkuan, of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Choral Music Series (GIA). He is also the editor of A Child Shall Lead: Children in Worship (Choristers Guild, 1999).
His articles have appeared in Studia Liturgica, Worship, Reformed Worship, Reformed Liturgy and Music, Assembly, The Hymn, The Chorister, Congregations, The Choral Journal, The American Organist, Liturgical Ministry, Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie, The Complete Library of Christian Worship, The Banner, and Books and Culture. He has also contributed to several dictionaries, including Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart; Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Music; Worship Music: A Concise Dictionary; Oxford Dictionary of Evangelical Theology, and Zondervan Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. He has given endowed lectures at Yale Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Pepperdine University, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Canadian Mennonite Seminary.
He is the recipient of the Jubilate Deo award from the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, The Charles H. Flax Excellence in Church Award from Hampton Ministers Conferences and Choirs Directors and Organists Guild of the Hampton Ministers Conference, and the Collaborative Change Award from Calvin University.
He also served as president of the board of directors for The Choristers Guild; music director of churches in Michigan and Indiana; research associate at Notre Dame’s Center for Pastoral Liturgy; and guest lecturer at worship conferences in several states and provinces, as well as in Hong Kong, Mexico City, Northern Ireland, England, and the Netherlands.
Many of these inter-related activities have focused on helping churches to receive more deeply the gift of a profoundly Trinitarian vision for corporate worship, to engage with the Biblical Psalms as source of pastoral encouragement, to integrate theology and the worship arts more intentionally, to engage in inculturation in ways that both embrace but also challenge and transform the cultural dynamics in any given community, and to strengthen practices that engage all persons, regardless of ability or disability, physical or mental concerns, in ministry together.