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.

Justice
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Teacher-Scholar Justice Leadership

Fuller Theological Seminary

Jennifer Ackerman

To study the impact arts-based training encouraging curiosity, creativity, and courage has on pastoral leadership to increase pastors' capacity to lead vibrant, justice-oriented communities of worship.

Teacher-Scholar
Pasedena, california
2024
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Teacher-Scholar Justice Public Witness

Howard University School of Divinity

Harold Dean Trulear

To explore and disseminate best practices for shaping and sustaining a Christian social justice witness through corporate worship.

Teacher-Scholar
Washington, district of columbia
2024
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Teacher-Scholar Formation Justice

University of Alabama

Courtney O’Grady

To invite Catholic school practitioners (PK–12) to engage in self-study and group discussion as a means of reckoning with racism, ableism, and other injustices in American Catholic school practices, and then to reimagine Catholic schools as inclusive and justice-oriented worshiping communities.

Teacher-Scholar
Tuscaloosa, alabama
2024
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Teacher-Scholar Hermeneutics Justice

Fresno Pacific University

Amy Whisenand

To explore the relationship between singing and reconciliation in the church through hosting workshops for scriptural study, practice sharing, and collaboration.

Teacher-Scholar
Fresno, california
2023
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Teacher-Scholar Justice Public Witness

Emory University Candler School of Theology

Susan Bigelow Reynolds

To study public, lay-led Way of the Cross (Via Crucis) rituals that engage contemporary social injustices in light of the cross, exploring how communities on the margins of church and society use public ritual to practice theological agency.

Teacher-Scholar
Atlanta, georgia
2022
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Teacher-Scholar Accessibility Justice

The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest

Brandon Crowley

To support and engage the public worship of African American congregations by creating a workbook that teaches pastors and local church leaders how to be more inclusive of Black women and LGBTQIA+ folx in their worship designs.

Teacher-Scholar
Austin, texas
2022
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