Current and Past Grants

Since 2000, Vital Worship grants have been awarded to worshiping communities and teacher-scholars in 45+ states and provinces and in 40+ denominations across the spectrum of Christian traditions, including Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, and Non-Denominational communities. While worship practices across these traditions vary widely, grant projects typically explore one or more of the ten core convictions  related to worship that emerged out of the first decade of this grantmaking.

Search results 11 - 20 of 997

Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, Andrew Summerson

Toronto, Ontario | 2022

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.

Southern Methodist University, Marcell Silva Steuernagel

Dallas, Texas | 2022

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.

The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Brandon Crowley

Austin, Texas | 2022

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.

University of Notre Dame Folk Choir, J.J. Wright

South Bend, Indiana | 2022

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.

Villanova University, Wonchul Shin

Villanova, Pennsylvania | 2022

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.

Yale University, Melanie Ross

New Haven, Connecticut | 2022

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.

Allen Chapel AME Church, 2021

Kalamazoo, Michigan | 2021

Project Director: Sarah Horton 

To enrich worship by engaging the arts in order to promote healing and understanding in the midst of social injustices. 

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Rebecca Slough

Elkhart, Indiana | 2021

To explore how the spatial and visual dimensions of congregational worship shape diverse Anabaptist communities, in order to create resources that facilitate culturally-informed reflection on visual arts in worship and to curate visual art resources for use in Anabaptist worship. 

Black Theology and Leadership Institute (BTLI)

Princeton, New Jersey | 2021

Project Director: Sushama Austin-Connor

To promote and teach social justice-centered worship through proclamation, practice, and protest. 

Candler School of Theology, Antonio Alonso

Atlanta, Georgia | 2021

To tell the story of the theological significance of ordinary material objects and the theological convictions they express, in order to encourage deeper attentiveness to the diverse materials through which we worship God.