CICW Funds Dozens of New Worship and Preaching Projects

In its latest round of Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants, the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) has announced grant awards for seventy-nine applicants across the United States and Canada. These one-year grants will promote thoughtful, innovative projects aimed at strengthening Christian worship practices and preaching.

The new recipients include sixty-eight worshiping communities from a range of Christian traditions and eleven teacher-scholars working in various academic disciplines. Grants of up to $25,000 will fund projects beginning January 1, 2026.

“We’re grateful for the large number of grant proposals we received this fall, which included a significant percentage from first-time applicants,” said Kathy Smith, CICW’s interim director and director of personnel and grantmaking programs.

We’re grateful for the large number of grant proposals we received this fall, which included a significant percentage from first-time applicants.

“We look forward to learning with these teacher-scholars and worshiping communities as they explore and nurture worship habits and practices that deepen the healing presence of congregations and worshiping communities, both within and beyond their walls.”

The deadline for the next round of Vital Worship, Vital Preaching grant proposals is April 25, 2026, for projects slated to begin August 1, 2026.

Grants for Worshiping Communities

The grant program’s Worshiping Communities stream funds projects for organizations such as churches, parishes, denominational ministries, educational institutions, senior living communities, retreat centers, and other nonprofits.

One trend in this latest round of grantees is an increased number of collaborative projects—often ecumenical—involving multiple churches and organizations. Another trend in project design is the use of a “worship lab” to explore the proposed topic, whether that be storytelling, liturgical design, preaching, songwriting, or other creative arts.

Intercultural worship, intergenerational worship, embodied worship, and worship with a “dwelling in the psalms” component are other important themes in this round of worshiping communities grants. Specific projects include:

• weaving together music, meditation, and psalms to promote culturally rooted, trauma-informed worship that fosters spiritual restoration and belonging;
• establishing an intergenerational, ecumenical community choir to strengthen spiritual formation and community connections;
• cultivating the practice of pilgrimage as an act of worship and racial healing in a collective of eight churches;
• renewing congregational worship by equipping seniors, adults, youth, and children to design and lead worship together;
• developing biblical frameworks for expressing suffering, pain, and lament in worship in a collaborative initiative of twenty city churches;
• implementing a spiritual formation program that includes worship modules for children, accessible spaces for people with disabilities, and integration with a digital platform;
• establishing a multigenerational preaching school for youth and adults;
• using a collaborative visual arts initiative to transform a worshiping community’s physical space to reflect God’s hospitality, justice, and presence among the marginalized; and
• bringing together Christian artists and songwriters from the United States and Palestine to co-create songs and liturgies on lament and resistance.

Grants for Teacher-Scholars

The grant program’s Teacher-Scholar stream recognizes the unique role that researchers in a variety of academic disciplines can play in strengthening Christian worship. Projects in the newest grantee cohort include:

• examining creative ways to display hospitality in worship as an expression of God’s mission;
• exploring how Black American spiritual worship practices support healing, justice, and community care within and beyond worshiping communities;
• transforming how congregations experience dance, music, and sacred architecture by bringing contemporary choreography into sanctuaries;
• revealing the largely unknown history of the French Huguenot Bible and its role in facilitating worship among Huguenot Christians from France to North America; and
• exploring how Protestant congregations can more fully include children in corporate worship.

These richly varied projects all aim to deepen people’s understanding of worship and strengthen practices of worship and faith formation in congregations. Projects will be implemented across Canada and the United States, including in four communities in Puerto Rico.

About Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants

Since its beginning in the year 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, grass-roots level. The Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants program is generously supported by Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc.