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
Select Year
Select State/Province

Church for All People

To intentionally engage the views of the full range of our racially and economically diverse congregation about the meaning and purpose of worship and to integrate their ideas, gifts, and perspectives into worship practices that feel authentic and hospitable to all.

Worshiping Communities
Columbus, ohio
2023

DurhamCares (2023)

To illuminate God’s beauty and brilliance in Durham’s public housing communities by offering liturgical arts learning events and collaborating with public housing residents to plan and host outdoor worship services.

Worshiping Communities
Durham, north carolina
2023

Emmaus Reformed Church

To create embodied, tactile, and participatory worship practices and liturgies to promote communal engagement and create a hospitable and accessible worship environment.

Worshiping Communities
Holland, michigan
2023

Faculty of Theology, St. Paul University

To embody a connection between Christian liturgy and ethical living by implementing a hospitable, ecumenical, multicultural, and bilingual worship gathering for students, staff, and faculty that emphasizes the well-being of the planet and the healing of broken relationships, especially those with Indigenous peoples.

Worshiping Communities
Ottawa, ontario
2023

New Bethel AME

To engage youth and young adults by remembering and retelling stories of the Black church through development of a lectionary, worship guide, and Sunday School curriculum emphasizing the seven principles of Kwanzaa.

Worshiping Communities
Lithonia, georgia
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

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

Holy Cross Lutheran Church (2022)

To deepen, enrich, and connect the individual and corporate worship life of congregants by drawing on the devotional practices of the saints throughout history in aesthetically rich and cohesive worship experiences that have corresponding practices which engage the senses and foster embodied devotional practices at home.

Worshiping Communities
St. Louis, missouri
2022