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.

Select Category
Select Year
Select State/Province
Teacher-Scholar Cultural Engagement Intercultural

École de Théologie Évangélique du Québec

Ruth Elaine Labeth

To study the composition of scripture-based songs in Creole churches in Guadeloupe to help worship leaders and pastors envision culturally contextualized worship.

Teacher-Scholar
Montreal, quebec
2023
Learn more
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
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Preaching

George Fox University

Sunggu A. Yang

To explore multidimensional preaching practices that meet listeners’ need to see, taste, feel, and even touch the compelling Word of the Triune God, resulting in a handbook to help preachers become more oriented to engaging contemporary listeners. 

Teacher-Scholar
Newberg, oregon
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Worship Practices

Knox College

Sarah Travis

To enhance the worship and self-identity of very small congregations through a theology of playfulness, by networking with leaders of small congregations, and writing a resource designed to enhance worship in small churches. 

Teacher-Scholar
Toronto, ontario
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Worship Leadership

Life Pacific University

Steven Felix-Jager

To support church practitioners in their aesthetic, pastoral, and theological deliberations about congregational worship music by addressing multiple modes of discernment, with the goal of leading to deeper, more empathetic understanding of worship traditions. 

Teacher-Scholar
San Dimas, california
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Liturgy Worship Practices

Loyola Marymount University

Layla A. Karst

To explore the pastoral and theological implications of online pandemic Liturgies of the Word, focusing especially on the translation of ritual practices between off-line and online worship and on emerging understandings of ecclesial leadership and authority. 

Teacher-Scholar
Los Angeles, california
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Youth

Providence College

Daria Spezzano

To draw on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to provide tools for disaffiliated Catholic college students to engage the goodness, truth, and beauty of God in worship as a response to their search for meaning. 

Teacher-Scholar
Providence, rhode island
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Formation Pedagogy

Trevecca Nazarene University

Vernon Whaley

To strengthen the theological training and spiritual formation of worship leaders through the development of foundational courses for a worship leadership certificate program.

Teacher-Scholar
Nashville, tennessee
2023
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Formation Intercultural

Azusa Pacific University

Alexander Jun

To build on previous research in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities by examining the role of chapel leaders in shaping chapel content and culture in order to demonstrate how chapel services shape the culture for diverse attendees.

Teacher-Scholar
Azusa, california
2022
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Visual Arts

Calvin University

James K.A. Smith

To prepare an essay that explores how contemporary visual and literary art fosters contemplative habits, an inviting 'preamble' to spiritual contemplation involved in both personal and communal liturgical practices.

Teacher-Scholar
Grand Rapids, michigan
2022
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Accessibility

Center of Theological Inquiry

Erin Raffety

To conduct interviews with persons living with chronic illness and Long COVID, and to analyze the convergence of cultural, theological, and disability-related perspectives among such persons in order to increase their full, conscious, active participation in worship.

Teacher-Scholar
Princeton, new jersey
2022
Learn more
Teacher-Scholar Architecture/Space Public Witness

Eden Theological Seminary

Christopher Grundy

To foster imagination about worship spaces that can help to draw people into a deeper relationship with their natural environment, experience that environment as sacred and sacramental, form them spiritually as agents of ecological justice and recovery, and help them to process and respond faithfully to increasing ecological disasters.

Teacher-Scholar
Webster Groves, missouri
2022
Learn more