The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship (CICW) has awarded one-year grants to 62 recipients across the United States and Canada to promote thoughtful, creative projects aimed at strengthening Christian worship practices and preaching.

This newest round in the Vital Worship, Vital Preaching Grants Program includes ten teacher-scholars working in various academic disciplines and fifty-two worshiping communities from various Christian traditions and denominations. Grant awards of up to $25,000 will fund projects beginning August 1, 2025.

The awards represent the first of two grant cycles in 2025. The next grant proposal due date is Oct. 15, 2025, for projects slated to begin Jan. 1, 2026.

Notable themes in this round of Vital Worship, Vital Preaching grants include multicultural and multilingual worship, storytelling in worship, equipping lay leaders, trauma healing, incorporating the creative arts, and promoting hospitality in public worship.

“We are grateful to partner with these teacher-scholars and worshiping communities as they study and promote the renewal of Christian worship in so many places,” said Kathy Smith, program manager for the grants program and CICW’s interim director.

“Our overall goal at CICW is to nurture long-term, spiritually nourishing worship habits in congregations and worshiping communities—habits and practices that deepen their healing presence in the world. We look forward to learning with these new grantees, and we pray that their practices of worship will indeed bring healing in and beyond their communities.”

Grants for worshiping communities 

The grant program’s Worshiping Communities stream funds projects for organizations such as churches, denominational ministries, educational institutions, senior living communities, retreat centers, and other nonprofits. Project topics in the new cohort include:

· Using the therapeutic power of music to enhance the well-being of worshipers

· Reimagining the experience of the Lord’s Supper in connection with cultural heritage months

· Implementing a monthly church dinner for young adults who are wary of church spaces but hungry for connection

· Hosting a learning cohort for under resourced Filipino American pastors

· Launching a worship discipleship program incorporating spoken word, liturgical dance, storytelling, and youth-led worship

· Exploring a Reformed, catholic philosophy of ministry to promote historic practices of worship and sacraments

· Launching a multicultural preaching and worship lab

· Promoting access to worship materials for seniors with dementia and people with varied abilities

· Providing training in worship planning, presiding, and preaching for small and rural churches

· Launching a songwriting cohort to produce new worship music centered on themes of justice, contemplation, and peace

Grants for teacher-scholars 

The grant program’s Teacher-Scholar stream recognizes the unique role that teacher-scholars in a range of disciplines can play in strengthening Christian worship. This summer’s ten recipients work in universities and seminaries and will conduct projects on topics including:

· Equipping worshiping communities to uplift leaders with disabilities

· Promoting restorative practices in worship and strengthening conflict transformation and trauma healing

· Empowering seminarians to engage science in their preaching

· Creating and performing a major choral and orchestral work portraying God’s love for and redemptive pursuit of God’s people

· Revitalizing the practice of confession and forgiveness in worship

As a group, these sixty-two diverse projects in twenty-five U.S. states or territories and four Canadian provinces all aim to deepen worshipers’ understanding of worship and to strengthen practices of worship and faith formation.

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 grassroots level. 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, visit worship.calvin.edu/grants/. To see a list of current and past grant recipients, visit worship.calvin.edu/grants/recipients.

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