The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has received a $1.25-million grant from the Lilly Endowment for an initiative on inclusive children’s ministry.
The grant will equip churches to be safe places inclusive of children — especially children with disabilities — and to use creative arts in worship and prayer practices to teach children, birth to 12 years old.
CBF’s program will collaborate with the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership and CBF Children’s Ministry Network. Funding comes through Lilly’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative, a national effort to help Christian congregations more fully and intentionally engage children in intergenerational corporate worship and prayer practices.
Kelly Rhodes Adams, director of CBF’s Clergy Support Ecosystem, said the CBF program holds promise to make partner congregations safer, more inclusive and more creative places.
“As a Christian educator and a parent of a 7-year-old, I am excited to see how CBF will equip ministers and congregations with the resources they need to partner with parents and caregivers in their children’s faith formation,” she said. “Our partners are already doing wonderfully creative and theologically sound work, and this initiative will elevate and expand that work in ways that are sure to be transformational for our children, families, and ultimately, entire faith communities.”
CBF is one of 91 organizations receiving funding through the latest round of the initiative. They represent and serve congregations ranging from Catholic to Mainline Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Anabaptist and Pentecostal.
“Congregational worship and prayer play a critical role in the spiritual growth of children and offer settings for children to acquire the language of faith, learn their faith traditions and experience the love of God as part of a supportive community,” said Christopher L. Coble, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “These programs will help congregations give greater attention to children and how they can more intentionally nurture the faith of children, as well as adults, through worship and prayer.”
The three primary focus areas in the CBF initiative will include safety, inclusion and the arts. One goal is to equip ministers and churches with best practices for making worship and prayer practices accessible to all children.