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.
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.
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.
The Luke Church
To facilitate discipleship by deeply engaging the stories of Advent and Easter through multiple disciplines, including theology, personality, technology, and worship arts.
Trevecca Nazarene University
Vernon Whaley
Vernon Whaley
To strengthen the theological training and spiritual formation of worship leaders through the development of foundational courses for a worship leadership certificate program.
Union Coffee
To affirm the goodness of God’s creation of Asian American and Pacific Islander cultures through celebrating AAPI heritage in dinner church communion services, exposing AAPI invisibility on social media, and exploring scripture and theology through AAPI perspectives.
Van Nuys UMC
To deepen the congregation’s understanding of the theology of worship and its faithful practice through a series of seminars, classes, and activities based on the CICW’s Ten Core Convictions.
Women’s Sacred Music Project
To enrich worshipers’ understanding of God by curating a collection of new worship resources by, for, and about women that highlights marginalized perspectives and embraces a more mysterious image of the divine.
Zoe Center
To facilitate deep engagement with scripture through song by gathering worship leaders, musicians, and pastors to study scripture and then write worship songs inspired by those scriptures.
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.
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.
Azusa Pacific University
Alexander Jun
Alexander Jun
To build on previous research in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities by examining the role of chapel leaders in shaping chapel content and culture in order to demonstrate how chapel services shape the culture for diverse attendees.
Bethel Community Presbyterian Church
To strengthen the hermeneutical skills, Biblical literacy, and spiritual agency of worshipers through the development of Bibliodrama in a local congregation that will help traumatized people to find themselves within the story of God.