Two dozen congregations have been selected to participate in the diocese’s Let the Children Come discernment and grant process, which offers an in-depth opportunity to explore and experiment with new ways to engage children in intergenerational worship and prayer.
Participating congregations will meet with a trained guide to explore their church’s hopes, worship practices and goals for forming children as disciples. After listening to children and imagining new possibilities, congregations will have access to grants of up to $7,500 to experiment with intergenerational worship and prayer practices that help them meet their formational goals.
The participating congregations are:
- Advocate, Chapel Hill
- Christ’s Beloved Community, Winston-Salem
- Good Shepherd, Raleigh
- Holy Family, Chapel Hill
- Nativity, Raleigh
- St. Alban’s, Davidson
- St. Ambrose, Raleigh
- St. Andrew’s, Greensboro
- St. Andrew’s, Rocky Mount
- St. Christopher’s, High Point
- St. John’s, Wake Forest
- St. Joseph’s, Durham
- St. Mary’s, High Point
- St. Matthew’s, Hillsborough
- St. Patrick’s, Mooresville
- St. Paul’s, Louisburg
- St. Paul’s, Smithfield
- St. Philip’s, Durham
- St. Stephen’s, Erwin
- St. Titus’, Durham
- Trinity, Fuquay-Varina
- Trinity, Statesville
Three congregations were previously selected to participate in an invitational pilot program. Each has received funding to implement intergenerational worship experiments:
- Grace, Clayton ($7,500)
- Holy Comforter, Burlington ($2,500)
- Holy Innocents, Henderson ($6,450)
Let the Children Come is a 5-year, $1.25 million grant project funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. to support our congregations to imagine and develop disciple-making strategies that include intentionally intergenerational worship and prayer practices alongside age-specific programs that help disciples of all ages know God and not only know about God.
Project leaders will come alongside congregations to:
- Spark imagination around intergenerational worship and its connection to holistic Christian formation;
- Equip and empower congregational leaders—clergy, staff, caregivers and children—with skills to:
- Help children and adults express their faith through worship and prayer
- Design and lead inclusive and sensory-rich worship rooted in Episcopal liturgical sources and grounded in local practices and traditions.
- Help to forge and support connections among congregations.
Congregations that are not participating in the discernment and grant process have access to other learning opportunities and resources about intergenerational ministry, the spirituality of children and disciple-making.
Those include webinars (recordings from spring webinars are available online, and three more will be offered this fall) and an overnight formation leaders’ retreat in October. More information about those webinars and the retreat will be shared this summer.
To learn more about Let the Children Come, visit the webpage or contact the Rev. Kelly Ryan, canon missioner for discipleship.
