Duke University has received a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. for $1.25 million over five years as part of their Nurturing Children through Worship and Prayer Initiative, a national initiative designed to help Christian congregations more fully and intentionally engage children in intergenerational corporate worship and prayer practices.
Duke Divinity School is one of the 13 United Methodist seminaries supported by the Ministerial Education Fund apportionment of the United Methodist Church.
The grant will enable Duke Divinity School to launch “Let the Children Come,” a regional partnership of congregations and leaders from across the southeastern United States. The program will leverage the extensive theological assets, logistical capabilities, and organizational stability of Duke University while privileging the lived theology and practical insight of congregational leaders and children themselves.
“Let the Children Come” will recruit churches, worship pastors, and children’s ministry leaders from diverse denominational, socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic affiliations located in urban, suburban, and rural settings. Drawing on institutional expertise in developing robust cohorts in academic and ministry contexts, the Duke program will test which cohort model best supports congregational creativity and commitment toward the goals of nurturing children through worship ministries.
New Program Welcomes Children
These cohorts will assist congregational leaders with making their communal worship intelligible and welcoming to children as a vital means to their formation in faith. Duke will also support these cohorts through providing facilitators with expertise in children’s engagement with congregational song, dance, ritual movements, and other worship gestures; creating and appreciating the visual arts; training children as worship leaders; welcoming children with disabilities; and building alliances with parents and other adults to develop children’s faith through worship.
The grant will also enable Duke Divinity to expand the reach of the learning and innovation emerging from the cohorts through curriculum and other resources for children, worship leaders, and parents. These include musical resources in partnership with Duke Chapel, courses for both scholars and ministry practitioners, and published assets with both academic and denominational partners. The promise at the heart of this effort at Duke is that deepening engagement between sites of wisdom and practice can harness and deploy the collective capacity to help children come to know and love God and grow in faith.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based, private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly and his sons, Eli and J.K. Jr., through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Grantmaking in religion seeks to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting endeavors that provide fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe.
Duke Divinity School website, Durham, NC
This story shows the power of the Ministerial Education Fund—one of seven apportionment funds of The United Methodist Church—to prepare and equip those answering God’s call to ministry. Your church’s support provides theological education, scholarships, and leadership development through our United Methodist seminaries and boards of ordained ministry. Together, we ensure that faithful, well-prepared leaders continue to guide the Church into the future.
When your church supports the Ministerial Education Fund, you invest in the next generation of United Methodist clergy and leaders.
