Upcoming Event
A Reformation Sunday worship service commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Accra Confession
October 27, 2024, 5:00 PM
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.
Emory University Candler School of Theology
Khalia J. Williams
Khalia J. Williams
To explore the theological significance of liturgical dance in Christian worship and to discover and analyze the multiple ways that dance shapes spirituality in worship communities and in individuals.
Teacher-Scholar
Atlanta, georgia
2022
Emory University Candler School of Theology
Susan Bigelow Reynolds
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
Hope College
David Keep
David Keep
To deepen worshipers' theology and spiritual life by creating an online Advent calendar that features visual art and music, and by holding art interpretation events and panel discussions in which participants engage theological truths—particularly the incarnation—through the arts.
Teacher-Scholar
Holland, michigan
2022
Hope College
Kate Finley
Kate Finley
To explore how public church practices, including sermons, corporate prayer, and other worship practices reflect various understandings and interpretations of mental disorders and to construct a practically applicable online resource that will enable congregations to be more inclusive of those who experience mental disorder and enriched by the unique perspectives they embody.
Teacher-Scholar
Holland, michigan
2022
Queen's College
Robert Neil Cooke
Robert Neil Cooke
To develop a theology of technology and social media that leads to the development of liturgical skills in the local church context and of ways to utilize technology and social media to strengthen the public activities of the church.
Teacher-Scholar
St. John's, newfoundland and labrador
2022
Samford University
Emily Andrews and Will Kynes
Emily Andrews and Will Kynes
To learn from and with an ecumenical group of churches unfamiliar with the practice of corporate lament to gather the most important questions and pastoral concerns related to practicing corporate lament, and to develop practices for retrieving and employing lament in worship.
Teacher-Scholar
Birmingham, alabama
2022
Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies
Andrew Summerson
Andrew Summerson
To bring together an ecumenical group of scholars to critically analyze early Christian liturgical poetry as prayer and pedagogy in order to give exposure to a significant and underdeveloped voice in contemporary Christianity.
Teacher-Scholar
Toronto, ontario
2022
Southern Methodist University
Marcell Silva Steuernagel
Marcell Silva Steuernagel
To engage in ethnographic research in collaboration with congregations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in order to promote integrative ecclesial environments that bridge the racial divide between White, Black, and Latinx constituencies.
Teacher-Scholar
Dallas, texas
2022
The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest
Brandon Crowley
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
University of Notre Dame Folk Choir
J.J. Wright
J.J. Wright
To teach Christian communities how to see grace and mercy in loss and suffering by enabling young people to contemplate difficult questions as they rehearse and perform the newly composed Passion for the Innocents.
Teacher-Scholar
South Bend, indiana
2022
Villanova University
Wonchul Shin
Wonchul Shin
To provide Asian and Asian-American worshiping communities with rich Pan-Asian theological resources for their public worship practice as a form of public witness that will proclaim the dignity of the Asian and Asian-American community and transform the culture of anti-Asian violence and racism.
Teacher-Scholar
Villanova, pennsylvania
2022
Yale University
Melanie Ross
Melanie Ross
To research the worship music industry, Christian higher education, and congregational ministry, in order to explore the intersection of liturgy and economics, to provide a history of how worship became part of the commercial music and entertainment industry, and to understand the ways that congregations and Christian colleges that train future worship leaders have responded to this shift.
Teacher-Scholar
New Haven, connecticut
2022