Cultivating Children’s Holistic Engagement in the Worship Life of the Church

Imagining Worship With Kids

IMAGINING WORSHIP WITH KIDS

We are pleased to announce that the Brehm Center has received $1.25M from the Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. With this grant, we will develop new programming to support the religious and spiritual formation of children.

A young boy with brown hair peeking out from behind a group of white and blue balloons, with tall golden wheat in the background.
Yellow disposable lighter with a green flame-shaped cap and a black safety lock at the top.
A group of people stacking their hands together in a show of unity.

Helping Children Grow in Faith and Deepen their Relationship with God

The aim of the national initiative is to support faith-based organizations as they help children grow in faith and deepen their relationships with God. One of the Brehm Center’s founding donors, Dolores “Dee” Brehm, shared a lifelong passion for the spiritual formation of children, and we are honored to continue her legacy through this project.

Our mission is to gather diverse ministry leaders, artists, congregations, and families to create and test art-based children’s resources which foster nine formative practices for intergenerational worship.

Partner With Us

For the next four years, through the collaboration of our advisory board comprised of authors, church and worship leaders, and children’s ministry practitioners – we will consider the challenges and needs of the church today as it seeks to engage young worshipers through art-based methods.

If you have any questions, please contact us at edw@fuller.edu or gracehlee@fuller.edu. We look forward to sharing our resources and partnering with you on this journey!

Blessings,
Ed Willmington (Grant Director) & Grace Lee (Grant Program Director)

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Family playing musical instruments together in living room, with a man playing guitar, a boy holding maraca, and two children, one holding a small percussion instrument, smiling.
A young girl with brown hair and earrings wearing a mustard-yellow sweater, looking at a wooden toy house she is holding.
A young girl with curly hair smiling and playing with a triangle-shaped object in a classroom or craft room.

Our Goal

Through this endeavor, our goal is to enable and serve church leaders, pastors, worship leaders, children’s directors, and families nationwide through the development of art-based resources to incorporate children more fully into the worship life of congregations. We will work with a team of pastors, educators, theologians, psychologists, and artists to develop resources for children focused on nine spiritual disciplines.

  • Worship

  • Prayer

  • Wisdom

  • Examen

  • Humility

  • Hospitality

  • Purpose

  • Shalom

  • Celebration

We will represent each practice through the methods of word, theology, song, body, and arts—producing resources for congregations and families that incorporate multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multi-generational values.