1855 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402 USA

On the campus of Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary
© 2025 91ÁÔÆæ
CICW has awarded Vital 91ÁÔÆæ, 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.
Paul Heintzman
To investigate how Christian worship and leisure influence each other in order to better understand the relationship between them, so that Christian worship may be enhanced, and the leisure of Christians can also be enriched.
Demetrius K. Williams
To explore the cross of Christ in African American Christian experience as motivation for piety, political engagement, and social protest by researching spirituals, narratives, sermons, and other resources that highlight the importance of the cross of Christ for notions of freedom and the unity of humanity in the church's public witness.
Karen Johnson
To study Christians who have historically worshipped together across racial lines, using case studies to explore how thinking Christianly and historically about race’s effect on American worship might help churches foster reconciliation in the present.
Alexander Jun
To study the experience of students of color in chapel programs at Christian colleges and universities, and to assess the influence of chapel worship practices on the stated goals of these institutions with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Shively Smith
To identify the metaphors and images that shape the interpretation of Scripture within worshiping communities, and to assess the impact of these interpretive images on a community’s relationship to various “others” and socio-political realities.
Elizabeth Anderson
To survey the process of revising the calendar of commemorations in the Episcopal Church since 2003 and to offer a proposal for how calendar reform might proceed amidst a diversity of theological understandings and liturgical practices.
Rebecca Spurrier
To create a liturgical resource that responds to ableist images, narratives, and symbols that are common in Christian worship, drawing from insights in liturgical studies and disability studies.
Rhoda Schuler
To analyze the field research data on the adult catechumenate in the Lutheran church and to offer workshops that help pastors and congregations envision an adult catechumenal model that could transform their congregations.
Tyler Greenway
To investigate the perceptions of public worship practices among young people who do not regularly attend worship services, in order to provide insight to Christian worshiping communities as they seek to better understand the life narratives of this population.
Andrew Wymer and Kristen Daley Mosier
To engage the baptismal practices of diverse Christian communities in regions impacted by toxic water, and to construct a theoretical and practical vision of baptismal solidarity for the broader Church.
Lynn Japinga
To explore the history of policies and practices regarding divorce in the Reformed Church in America, and to study how these policies have shaped worship practices such as Scripture reading, public prayer, and preaching, and affected divorced people.
Benjamin Meagher
To study how the physical design and layout of a worship space influences the experience and reflects the religious identity of the congregation that worships there.
