Nurturing Children Initiative
Contact:
Katrina Tatum
Baptist Grove Church
Director of Ministries
grants@baptistgrovechurch.org
Sunday, October 26, 2024
Baptist Grove Church has received a $1.25 million dollar grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Cultivating a Legacy of Living Faith Program, based on 2 Timothy 1:5, which will enhance intergenerational worship by helping congregations incorporate insights from research on child development with storytelling practices from Black Church traditions.
The program is 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.
Baptist Grove’s foundation of living in faith, living in fellowship, and living to serve directly contributes to the church’s growth in membership, community outreach, children and youth ministries, and discipleship programming. We believe, as evidenced in scripture (2 Timothy 1:5; Deuteronomy 6), there is a necessity for faithful followers of Christ to disciple the next generation of believers through intentional teaching and modeling of faith practices.
As such, Baptist Grove will develop programming that demonstrates our passion of cultivating a deep, authentic, and enduring faith among God’s people, as demonstrated through a daily lifestyle. Baptist Grove will accomplish this by employing a cultural perspective that captures the ethos of Black/African American Church and associated spiritual and religious practices. Baptist Grove will partner with multiple congregations to incorporate curriculum that will help families grow deeper in their spiritual formation, help to enhance intergenerational family worship experiences and prayer practices, and create digital resources to promote family- centered spiritual formation.
According to the Reverend Dr. Bankole Akinbinu, Baptist Grove Church’s Senior Pastor, the Cultivating a Legacy of Living Faith Program will, “help children come to know and love God and grow in faith. It will also help to further the development and maturation of disciples that will grow to lead the church of the future.”
Baptist Grove Church is one of 91 organizations funded 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.”
Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. The principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and 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 fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe.