Introduction
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 – 31, 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.
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.