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.
Princeton Theological Seminary
Hyun Woo Kim
Hyun Woo Kim
To empower Asian American churches to embrace their cultural heritage, reconcile intergenerational differences, and re-envision worship in ways that reflect their congregants’ diverse identities and experiences by integrating Asian cultural elements into Western hymnody and worship frameworks.
Proskuneo Ministries
To promote unity within diversity in Christian worship by providing safe and hospitable spaces for multilingual songwriting processes among diverse groups, leading to the incorporation of multilingual songs into existing liturgies.
Providence Theological Seminary
Robert Dean
Robert Dean
To resituate homiletics within a Christological and robustly trinitarian framework by examining prominent assumptions governing preaching today, in order to revitalize North American preaching for the sake of the formation of worshiping communities.
Ravensworth Baptist Church
To decolonize worship life by auditing the liturgy, music, preaching, and sacred spaces of the church in order to fully live into the church’s commitment to antiracism and its mission of “Sharing Love, Doing Justice, and Building Community.”
Real Community Covenant Church
To strengthen those who lead worship by deepening their unity with one another while cultivating skills in planning and leading worship that integrates cultural expressions with the narrative of God’s story.
Reconciliation Anglican Church
To integrate ancient liturgy and prayer with expressions of worship such as art, meal sharing, and communal serviceso as to strengthen connections between gathered worship and daily life.
River East Church
To facilitate a deep engagement with scripture through a culture of God-centered storytelling that develops the habit of naming God as the main actor in stories from both scripture and worshipers’ lived experience.
Rollins College
Harold Dorrell Briscoe
Harold Dorrell Briscoe
To research the historical and sociopolitical significance of Negro spirituals in movements of liberation, and to demonstrate through workshops, concerts, and an immersive learning trip how these spirituals can enrich modern Christian worship practices.
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas Office for Worship
To create a formation program on liturgy, theology, and musicianship that equips and encourages Spanish-speaking parish musicians and music ministers.
Ruakh Arts
To help churches and artists learn to collaborate with each other more effectively through an artist-in-residence program that will help worshipers connect more deeply with God, scripture, and one another through the arts.
Samford University
Nelson Cowan
Nelson Cowan
To equip churches to better understand youths’ motivations for participation in worship by conducting a qualitative study of their attitudes toward diverse liturgical forms, their responses to liturgical change, and their participation in public Christian worship.
Samford University
Jonathan Rodgers
Jonathan Rodgers
To examine post-COVID worship in the Southern Baptist Church through interviews and surveys to gain an understanding of how worship has been and is being reconfigured.