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.

Liturgy
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Select State/Province
Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Houghton College

To encourage full, active, conscious participation in worship by exploring a broad range of music that includes traditional and newer hymnody, fostering understanding and dialogue between those whose musical tastes are vastly different, deepening the understanding of the Trinity in worship, and matching the rhythm of worship with the liturgical calendar.

Worshiping Communities
Houghton, new york
2006
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Lake View Lutheran Church

To incorporate lay leaders of all ages in planning and leading worship around themes of justice and mercy to meet the needs of the surrounding urban community.

Worshiping Communities
Chicago, illinois
2006
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Office of Worship, Diocese of Honolulu

To gather clergy and laity from six remote Hawaiian islands to study the history and theology of liturgical worship so they may assist their worshiping community in participation in the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist.

Worshiping Communities
Kaneohe, hawaii
2006
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Unity Christian Reformed Church

To learn about how the design of a worship space teaches, invites, inspires, and connects in order to foster versatile, multigenerational, mission-focused, biblical worship in a growing rural church.

Worshiping Communities
Prinsburg, minnesota
2006
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Commission on Ritual and Worship (CMEC)

To review and evaluate the Book of Ritual, a current denominational resource for worship, that will lead to revisions of content, language, theology and rubrics so that the resource will more accurately reflect the theological heritage of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CMEC), promote deeper understanding of, and meaning in, rituals, and include materials that will speak to the diversity of musical and liturgical concerns of the cultures and demographics within the CMEC.

Worshiping Communities
Los Angeles, california
2005
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Diocesan Worship Directors of Michigan

To provide liturgical formation for musicians and others responsible for liturgical preparation to aid them in choosing appropriate liturgical music through participation in a Summer Camp.

Worshiping Communities
Detroit, michigan
2005
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Office of Theology and Worship, PC(USA)

To reflect on shared practices of prayer and service among pastors and church leaders and to provide for a series of on-site consultations to identify and strengthen pilot churches who are intentionally seeking to connect sacramental practices with mission and service commitments.

Worshiping Communities
Louisville, kentucky
2005
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Office of Worship and Christian Initiation, Archdiocese of Santa Fe

To train and form local liturgical leaders through a process of learning, and applying that learning by designing, implementing and evaluating a parish liturgy project and writing a theological reflection paper integrating what they learned with their story, the story of their parish communities and the story of God’s love for us.

Worshiping Communities
Albuquerque, new mexico
2005
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Oklahoma Alliance for Liturgy and the Arts

To establish partnerships between visual artists and church congregations by engaging in the study and development of a theology of worship that includes the visual arts, offering workshops to link artists with the needs of congregations and creating residencies for artists to work with church members to develop art for worship.

Worshiping Communities
Shawnee, oklahoma
2005
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Church of the Redeemer

To commission art and music suitable for services conducted within the home, to assist home-based churches in worship planning, and to write a series of articles to encourage home-based churches to reflect on their worship practices with respect to intentional liturgy.

Worshiping Communities
Grand Rapids, michigan
2004
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy Music

Diocesan Worship Directors of Michigan (2004)

To provide liturgical formation to musicians and others responsible for liturgy through a Summer Camp experience.

Worshiping Communities
Saginaw, michigan
2004
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Worshiping Communities Liturgy

Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions

To offer a study week that focuses on both liturgical theology of elements of worship and multi-cultural liturgy for liturgical leaders in the Roman Catholic dioceses of the United States.

Worshiping Communities
Washington DC, washington
2004
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