October 31, 2023

St. Olaf College has received a grant of $1.25m from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish Nourishing Vocation with Children, a new program in the college’s Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community supporting congregational development and renewal.

The program is funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. 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.

Nourishing Vocation with Children seeks to enrich children’s capacity to know, love, and serve God through child-attentive, arts-centric intergenerational worship and prayer practices. The program will equip congregations and their leaders with ideas, resources, and hands-on experiences that will help them integrate music, theater, movement, poetry, and visual arts into congregational worship and prayer, in ways that both center children and deepen engagement for the congregation as a whole.

Select congregations will pilot newly developed projects during 2023-2024 and share their work at the St. Olaf College Conference on Worship, Theology, and the Arts, July 29 – August 1, 2024. Pilot projects will also be shared through outdoor ministry partnerships and at various church-based conferences. Congregational leaders will then work in cohorts to implement Nourishing Vocation with Children projects in their respective congregations, share and reflect on their experiences, and learn from each other.

Nourishing Vocation with Children will also foster spiritual enrichment, teaching and learning, professional development, and a sense of shared vocation among participating St. Olaf faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

“We are honored by the vision and generosity of Lilly Endowment, enabling St. Olaf staff, faculty, and students to support ecumenical efforts to nourish the youngest among us in diverse communities of faith,” said St. Olaf President Susan Rundell Singer. “We look forward to the intergenerational engagement, artistic enrichment, and vocational discernment that the Nourishing Vocation with Children project will help to foster.”

Lilly Endowment is making nearly $32 million in grants through this invitational round of the Nurturing Children initiative. The grants are funding efforts to help organizations develop new and/or enhance existing programs that support congregations as they design worship services and prayer practices that more intentionally and fully engage children.

St. Olaf College is one of 26 organizations taking part in the initiative. They represent and serve congregations in a broad spectrum of Christian traditions, including mainline Protestant, evangelical, Catholic, Pentecostal, Black church, Hispanic and Asian traditions. Many organizations also serve churches that describe themselves as nondenominational, ecumenical and multi-denominational.

Lilly Endowment launched the Nurturing Children initiative in 2022 as part of its commitment to support efforts that strengthen the religious education and formation of children and enhance the vitality of Christian congregations.

About Lilly Endowment Inc

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.