CICW Grants Fund 49 New Projects in Worship and Preaching

The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) has awarded yearlong grants to 49 recipients throughout the United States and Canada to stimulate thoughtful, innovative work aimed at strengthening Christian worship practices and preaching.

The latest round of Vital Worship, Vital Preaching grants includes 16 awards to teacher-scholars working in various academic disciplines and 33 awards to worshiping communities in diverse Christian traditions and denominations. Grant awards of up to $25,000 will fund projects beginning Sept. 1, 2024.

These awards represent the third of three grant cycles for projects with start dates in 2024. The next grant proposal due date is Oct. 15, 2024, which will fund work slated to begin after Jan. 1, 2025.

Common themes in this round of worship-related projects include trauma healing, ecological and climate care, intergenerational worship practices, renewing liturgical worship, and integrating the arts into public worship.

“We look forward to working with these grant recipients as they focus on a variety of key worship practices and important issues in the church,” said Kathy Smith, program manager for the grants program and CICW’s senior associate director. “We are grateful for their insight and ingenuity, and we are eager to learn along with them in the coming year.”

Grants for 33 Worshiping Communities

The grant program’s Worshiping Communities stream awards grants to organizations such as churches, denominational ministries, seminaries, universities, senior living communities, retreat centers, and other nonprofits. Projects receiving grants include:

• Expanding a dance-as-prayer program as a cross-cultural collaboration between churches in the U.S. and Africa
• Implementing an intergenerational project that weaves environmental justice into a congregation’s worship, education, and ministries
• Creating a refuge where people from all walks of life can heal from the wounds of isolation
• Spending a year immersed in the psalms of ascent
• Creating a booklet featuring English-language hymns translated into Kreyòl (Creole) and Haitian hymns translated into English, connecting the people of two cultures who live and worship together
• Exploring the integration of work, vocation, and ministry
• Launching a worship leadership development initiative for college students
• Leading a cohort that helps Asian American pastors grow in their capacity to lead congregations in worship, healing, and witness

Grants for 16 Teacher-Scholars

The grant program’s Teacher-Scholar stream recognizes the unique role that teacher-scholars in a wide range of disciplines can play in strengthening Christian worship. The 15 recipients work in universities, seminaries, and academic societies and will conduct projects on topics such as:

• Studying the phenomenon of “belonging” in a church that worships beneath an interstate highway
• Rediscovering the hymnody of C. P. Jones, a Black American minister born in the nineteenth century
• Exploring the role of poetry in enhancing spiritual formation and worship
• Bringing together novice and experienced preachers, both lay and ordained, for mutual development

Through their varied approaches, these 49 newly funded projects based in 25 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces all aim to deepen worshipers’ understanding of worship and strengthen practices of worship and faith formation.

“We are grateful to celebrate the vision of leaders in so many local worshiping communities who are eager to learn and grow, and of teacher-scholars eager to serve worshiping communities with their expertise,” CICW director John Witvliet said. “It is inspiring to see such generativity emerging in so many contexts across North America.”

About Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants

Since beginning in 2000, the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants program has awarded more than a thousand one-year grants to worshiping communities (churches, schools, and other organizations) and teacher-scholars in various disciplines across the United States and Canada. The grants fund thoughtful, creative projects that promote renewal in public worship and faith formation at the local, grassroots level. In 2023, the program launched an invitational Spanish-language grant program for Hispanic worshiping communities in the United States, including in Puerto Rico. The Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants program is generously supported by Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc.

For more information about the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants program, please see worship.calvin.edu/grants/. To see a list of current and past grant recipients, visit worship.calvin.edu/grants/past.html.