ALEXANDRIA, Va., September 20, 2024 – Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) has been awarded a $1.25 million grant by Lilly Endowment Inc. to launch an initiative to research and develop child-centered practices in worship.
The program is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s 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.
The VTS initiative, Roots & Wings – Intergenerational Formation Collaborative (R&W), is a five-year action research project to foster child-centered practices and creativity to help form the Christian faith in children and renew congregations. The project, which will draw on Anglican theological anthropology, liturgical theology, and rigorous science, will challenge the status quo in most congregations where worship practices are adult-centric, and faith transmission relies on outdated models of teaching and learning.
Instead, R&W will look at how to strengthen worship and prayer practices that focus on how children experience God and express their faith, as well as exploring how to make worship and prayer more fully inclusive of all children, including those with
disabilities. The initiative will also draw on the arts, such as music, visual arts, and drama, to enhance the experience of worship and prayer for children.
As part of the project, R&W will undertake research to understand why and how intergenerational worship forms faith, as well as creating culturally contextual resources on worship and prayer practices for children, with the aim of inspiring intergenerational practices that form children’s faith and strengthen Episcopal congregations.
Sarah Allred, project director of R&W, said: “The project is designed to transform the culture of worship and faith formation in Episcopal congregations by recognizing the inherent worth and giftedness of all children. Roots & Wings will call our denomination to account for the gap between what we claim to believe about children and how we too often live as church.”
The inspiration for R&W grew out of requests from small congregations and diocesan leaders who hoped VTS would act as a denominational hub to foster and sustain research-based and culturally contextual intergenerational worship and prayer practices that form children’s faith. It builds on the work already carried out by Lifelong Learning at VTS to activate baptism by connecting, nurturing, and highlighting communities of faithful practice.
VTS is one of 91 organizations to receive 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.”
