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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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

South Meridian Church of God

To study, develop, and implement liturgical practices that equip worshipers for mission, and to discover gifts in the community that can be assets to the church's worship.

Worshiping Communities
Anderson, indiana
2021
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Worshiping Communities Sacraments

St. John’s Church

To deepen worshipers' experience of the Eucharist by learning together, sharing testimonies, varying practices, and living into the connection of the Eucharist to mission.

Worshiping Communities
Dubuque, iowa
2021
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy Music

Trinity Church

To pilgrimage together through the Christian Year as spiritual formation in order to more deeply experience Christ, the church, spiritual practices, and the community. 

Worshiping Communities
Wenatchee, washington
2021
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Teacher-Scholar Preaching

University of Dallas

Carla Pezzia and Theodore James Whapham

To survey clergy and congregants regarding the state of homiletics in the Catholic church in order to support Catholic preachers in improving their homilies and leverage liturgical preaching to reconnect with disengaged congregants.   

Teacher-Scholar
Irving, texas
2021
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Teacher-Scholar Leisure

University of Ottawa

Paul Heintzman

To investigate how Christian worship and leisure influence each other in order to better understand the relationship between them, so that Christian worship may be enhanced, and the leisure of Christians can also be enriched.

Teacher-Scholar
Ottawa, ontario
2021
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Teacher-Scholar Cultural Engagement Public Witness

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Demetrius K. Williams

To explore the cross of Christ in African American Christian experience as motivation for piety, political engagement, and social protest by researching spirituals, narratives, sermons, and other resources that highlight the importance of the cross of Christ for notions of freedom and the unity of humanity in the church's public witness.

Teacher-Scholar
Milwaukee, wisconsin
2021
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Worshiping Communities Accessibility

Volunteers of America Northern Rockies (VOANR)

To create and implement worship services designed to restore the self-worth of worshipers who have suffered moral injury and to provide spiritual renewal and hope to them and their families.

Worshiping Communities
Sheridan, wyoming
2021
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Teacher-Scholar Historical

Wheaton College

Karen Johnson

To study Christians who have historically worshipped together across racial lines, using case studies to explore how thinking Christianly and historically about race’s effect on American worship might help churches foster reconciliation in the present.

Teacher-Scholar
Wheaton, illinois
2021
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Worshiping Communities Multicultural Music

Asbury Theological Seminary (2020)

To strengthen practices of congregational song by introducing a globally diverse diet of hymns and other congregational songs and by strengthening understanding of the contexts in which songs were created.

Worshiping Communities
Wilmore, kentucky
2020
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