CICW has awarded Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants for over 20 years to teacher-scholars and worshiping communities in 45+ states and provinces and across 40+ denominations and traditions—including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, non-denominational, and other Protestant communities.


While worship styles and practices vary greatly across these traditions, the grant projects typically explore at least one of CICW’s ten core convictions related to worship. Explore the hundreds of projects we’ve funded across both streams of the program.

Education/Leadership
Select Year
Select State/Province

Iglesia One Family Church

To develop training workshops in the arts to educate the congregation on the meaning of integral worship and to develop practical workshops on music and singing for worship leaders to enhance bilingual public worship.

Worshiping Communities
Orlando, florida
2022

Oklahoma Christian University

To develop a vibrant, meaningful, an.d formative worship program for daily chapel in order to develop a shared communal identity in Christ which is rooted in the University’s acapella Church of Christ heritage and is also hospitable to all worshipers

Worshiping Communities
Oklahoma City, oklahoma
2022

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (2022)

To center worship in the seminary’s curriculum by fostering symbiotic exchange between the worship program and other departments, with emphasis on worship as a central place of formation for the whole community.

Worshiping Communities
Pittsburgh, pennsylvania
2022

Saint Peter A.M.E. Zion Church

To promote genuine grace-filled hospitality in worship through a more racially, culturally, and intergenerationally sensitive worship experience that is sustained and perpetuated through a message of love, adaptability, and social engagement during the worship experience.

Worshiping Communities
Tuscaloosa, alabama
2022

Seventh Day Baptist General Conference

To promote unity and diversity in local Seventh Day Baptist congregations by gathering worship leaders to discern the transcultural, contextual, cross-cultural, and counter-culture nature of worship as they worship together in diverse ways.

Worshiping Communities
Janesville, wisconsin
2022

University Congregational United Church of Christ (2022)

To deeply integrate worship and other congregational activities so that the church’s engagement of cross-cultural relationships, education, justice, and collaboration weaves seamlessly with worship.

Worshiping Communities
Seattle, washington
2022

Clinton College

To engage in biblical and theological reflection, practical training, and collaboration to initiate chapel worship that promotes individual and collective formation of students around the core values of the institution.

Worshiping Communities
Rock Hill, south carolina
2021

Duke University Divinity School

John Ruth

To survey the present state of college and seminary instruction on the theology, history, and practice of contemporary praise and worship, and to engage scholars in conversation around recent and emerging scholarship on contemporary worship in order to create a podcast series and a curriculum guide for worship educators and church practitioners.

Teacher-Scholar
Durham, north carolina
2021