In October, Western District Conference (WDC) of Mennonite Church USA received a $677,730 grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support its new Kids Meet Christ program, encouraging congregations to reimagine worship with innovative ideas that engage and celebrate children’s faith.
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.
On February 1, Grace Parker Sutter began as the new program director for Kids Meet Christ and Jennie Wintermote, who also serves as the WDC Library Director, began as the administrative assistant. With oversight by WDC Associate Conference Minister Kathy Neufeld Dunn, Parker Sutter and Wintermote will implement the grant over the course of five years by facilitating worship workshops each spring and fall and providing resources for the inclusion of all children, including those with special needs, in worship. They will also coordinate groups of pastors and volunteer church leaders to share worship ideas and invite artists to create new faith formation worship visuals.
Drawing on over a decade of experience working with children and adults in classroom and church settings, Parker Sutter hopes the grant will enable congregations in WDC to better understand children’s developmental needs and engage them with a wider range of experiences to lay the foundation for a rich spiritual life.
WDC is one of 91 organizations funded through the latest round of the Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children initiative.
“These organizations have proposed compelling projects to help congregations nurture faith in children by giving greater attention to including children in corporate worship services and prayer practices, attending especially to how they engage children in the language, movement and sound of worship in sensory-rich ways,” said Christopher L. Coble, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion. “We are looking forward to learning how these efforts will help children encounter God through worship and prayer and, in doing so, nurture the faith of all children and strengthen congregational life.”
Western District Conference is an area conference of Mennonite Church USA. The Conference includes 55 congregations and church plants in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Guatemala representing around 6,000 individuals. For more information, please contact Grace Parker Sutter at kmcdir@mennowdc.org or Jennie Wintermote at kmcassistant@mennowdc.org.