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.  

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 incorporating the lived theology and practical insight of congregational leaders and children themselves.  

“Christian formation is at the heart of Duke Divinity,” said Edgardo Colón-Emeric, dean and Ruth and A. Morris Williams Jr. Professor of Theology and Christian Ministry. “We believe that faith formation for all ages through worship and prayer is essential to the witness and flourishing of the church. We celebrate that this initiative centers children’s growth in faith and their essential role in the vitality and fidelity of congregational worship.”  

“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.  

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; nurturing children with disabilities; and building alliances with parents and other adults to develop children’s faith through worship. 

“Congregational worship and prayer play a critical role in the spiritual growth of children and offer important 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, the 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 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. 

“This grant from Lilly Endowment aims to ground children’s faith formation in the primary practice of Christian life,” said Fred Edie, associate professor of the practice of Christian Education. “With support from Duke Divinity faculty and staff, the grant will invite children, parents, children’s workers, and pastors in scores of congregations to dream and experiment with children’s fuller inclusion in worship. Their faith will be formed through their praise of God, and congregational worship may sound an even more profound alleluia.”  

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. Although gifts of stock remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, the Endowment is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. The Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion. 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.