By Jeff Huett

DECATUR, Ga. — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has received a $1.25-million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to establish an initiative that 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, through a variety of developmentally-appropriate media and methods.  

CBF’s program, which is in partnership with the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership and CBF Children’s Ministry Network, is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. It’s a national initiative designed to help Christian congregations more fully and intentionally engage children in intergenerational corporate worship and prayer practices.  

Kelly Rhodes Adams, the director of CBF’s Clergy Support Ecosystem, said the CBF program holds a lot of 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,” Adams 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 funding through the latest round of the initiative. They represent and serve congregations in a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, including Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Anabaptist and Pentecostal faith communities. Several organizations are rooted in Black Church and Hispanic and Asian American Christian traditions.  

“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.”

Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Anabaptist and Pentecostal faith communities. Several organizations are rooted in Black Church and Hispanic and Asian American Christian traditions.  

The three primary focus areas in the CBF initiative will include safety, inclusion and the arts. Children are not able to learn if they don’t feel safe. So, the program will serve as a resource for churches to safeguard children and make spaces and volunteers as safe as possible. 

The program will also serve as a resource for congregations to be welcoming and inclusive of all levels of ability (physical and intellectual) and to learn more about neurodiversity. A goal is to equip ministers and churches with best practices for making worship and prayer practices accessible to all children. And the program will encourage ministers and churches to be partners with parents and caregivers in the faith formation of their children.

The program will also serve as a resource for congregations to partner with artists in varying disciplines to enrich faith formation through integrating arts into worship and prayer practices and faith formation. Connecting faith with creativity is core to who we are as Christians who worship a creating God. 

Kristen Koger, associate pastor for spiritual growth, at FBC Waynesboro, Va., said that as a pastor working closely with children and their caregivers, she is “thrilled” that CBF has been awarded this grant.  

“In my experience, families are eager for ways to help their children engage in worship, spirituality and creativity but just need the tools to do so,” Koger said. “As a member of the CBF Children’s Ministry Network, I often hear my peers discussing how to create inclusive and safe spaces for families. I am excited to see how this initiative will support churches, pastors and families in encountering God in transformative and life-giving ways.” 

Harrison Litzell of the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership said the work of this initiative feels like an outpouring of his soul’s desire, “to see the church as place that not only includes children but collaborates together for the fuller spiritual formation of the whole congregation.”  

“As a partner in this new project, the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership has an opportunity to support congregations in developing a generation of children with resilient faith, a generation that is connected to their communities. By including children in worship, congregations will bring more of the church into full community and foster a more collaborative, vibrant and creative faith,” he said.  

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CBF is a Christian network that helps people put their faith to practice through ministry efforts, global missions and a broad community of support. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.