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.
Faith Mennonite Church
To equip lay leaders by hosting workshops that broaden understanding of what preaching can be in an intergenerational and hybrid worship context in order to expand leaders’ repertoire of meaningful ways of engaging with scripture to facilitate spiritual growth.
Innovative Literacy Solutions
To train children and youth in understanding of worship and in worship skills, including media technology and leading music, to equip them to lead worship at Lighthouse Full Life Center.
New Journey United Church of Christ
To empower lay leaders to create digital worship services that enable lay leaders in other rural churches to facilitate worship without a clergy member.
The United Church of Canada
To develop a worship community resource and learning platform with theologically sound, justice-rooted resources for congregational singing, bolstered by in-person learning events and educational video projects connecting congregational song to strong discipleship.
Congregational Church of the Good Shepherd
To connect older and younger generations in both church and neighborhood communities through creating virtual meeting places for online worshipers and by creating opportunities for intergenerational musical and artistic engagement.
Queen's College
Robert Neil Cooke
Robert Neil Cooke
To develop a theology of technology and social media that leads to the development of liturgical skills in the local church context and of ways to utilize technology and social media to strengthen the public activities of the church.
Visible Church
To enhance our bilingual worship service experience to impact our local church family and the online community, becoming a multicultural church.
Cary First Christian Church
To enable the full, conscious, active participation of online worshipers by developing community among those worshiping online and in-person.
New Brunswick Theological Seminary
To facilitate meaningful, active participation of the whole community in worship by exploring the role of worship in theological education and methods of digital accessibility.
Wartburg Seminary
To extend the worshiping community to include those who are not physically present by exploring ways to faithfully worship in a digital world.
More Than 12 Church
To collaboratively plan multicultural worship services that present newly written biblically inspired psalms and multimedia experiences related to those psalms.
Andover Newton Theological School
To help seminary students and faculty discern theologically sound and effective uses of technology and visual media in worship through a year-long process of learning about best practices for chapel worship.