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.

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St. John’s Lutheran Church of Sweet Air

To learn about worship symbolism and accessibility concerns that hinder welcoming all worshipers through engaging in learning groups that explore relevant resources and analyze other worship spaces.

Worshiping Communities
Phoenix, maryland
2023

St. Mary's Catholic Church

To strengthen worshipers’ experience of communion and to deepen the connections between Eucharistic worship and all areas of life by gathering parishioners for weekly opportunities to study, reflect, and practice community. 

Worshiping Communities
Jackson, tennessee
2023

The Bellbrook Presbyterian Church

To enable collaborative worship planning and leadership through worship leader training, exploration of the congregation’s spiritual gifts, video creation, special music opportunities, and household worship kits.

Worshiping Communities
Bellbrook, ohio
2023

The Church We Hope For

To create a safe place of healing for people seeking to reclaim their faith and its expression in their own cultural contexts by planning services that highlight a plethora of cultural expressions of worship and shaping the liturgy to encourage different cultural expressions of various faith practices.

Worshiping Communities
Monrovia, california
2023

The Luke Church

To facilitate discipleship by deeply engaging the stories of Advent and Easter through multiple disciplines, including theology, personality, technology, and worship arts.

Worshiping Communities
Humble, texas
2023

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

Union Coffee

To affirm the goodness of God’s creation of Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures through celebrating AAPI heritage in dinner church communion services, exposing AAPI invisibility on social media, and exploring scripture and theology through AAPI perspectives.

Worshiping Communities
Dallas, texas
2023

Women’s Sacred Music Project

To enrich worshipers’ understanding of God by curating a collection of new worship resources by, for, and about women that highlights marginalized perspectives and embraces a more mysterious image of the divine.

Worshiping Communities
Lafayette Hill, pennsylvania
2023

Zoe Center

To facilitate deep engagement with scripture through song by gathering worship leaders, musicians, and pastors to study scripture and then write worship songs inspired by those scriptures.

Worshiping Communities
Whittier, california
2023

Anabaptist Worship Network

To gather songwriters, poets, and artists to produce songs, prayers, art pieces, and videos that will resource and inspire under-resourced Anabaptist communities across North America.

Worshiping Communities
Elkhart, indiana
2022

Au Sable Institute (2022)

To support, connect, and amplify Christian college students who deeply care about God's earth by creating liturgies of restoration that students can live out in their everyday lives as they connect worship and the mission to serve.

Worshiping Communities
Mancelona, michigan
2022