Children serve as acolytes at the Feb. 11, 2024 celebration of the Lunar New Year at Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel. Photo: Janet Kawamoto
The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has received a $1.2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to fund its new “Immersed in Worship: Welcoming Children into Intergenerational Worship” initiative.
The program, developed and headed by Missy Morain, missioner for Christian formation for children and youth at the diocese since September, will provide congregations with resources and tools to engage children, focused on those ages 12 and under.
“The Episcopal Church has a robust theology of ministry to, by, and with children, but our lived reality is out of sync with that theology,” Morain said. She hopes the new initiative will change that.
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.
The Rev. Canon Melissa McCarthy, canon to the ordinary, who played a key role in organizing the initiative, said: “We are grateful to Lilly Endowment for affirming our vision and commitment to children in our diocese and the church. Missy Morain’s ideas, coalesced in this grant, are inspired. She is a brilliant educator with years of experience and cutting-edge work in children’s and youth ministry at the church-wide level. This grant enables us to do something we have long dreamed of — resource congregations to engage children through grassroots, diocesan-supported efforts. It will be transformational for our diocese, and, with God’s help, the whole church.”
Morain applied for the grant on behalf of the diocese, with the support of Bishop John Harvey Taylor. She said that Bishop Taylor encouraged the project and was determined to see it implemented.
“I am thrilled that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has been awarded a grant from Lilly Endowment to support our ‘Immersed in Worship: Welcoming Children into Intergenerational Worship’ initiative,” Bishop Taylor said. “Through this transformative initiative, we aspire to create an environment where children can encounter God through age-appropriate worship experiences and prayerful engagement, sowing the seeds of deep-rooted spirituality in our children that will illuminate their paths throughout their lives. ‘Immersed in Worship’ also allows us to build a structure to resource the congregations of the diocese, which will benefit our entire Episcopal community.”
Morain said that the grant of $1,245,167, which is to be used over four years beginning in 2025, will focus on connecting cohorts of clergy, laity, and volunteers, and providing them with training and tools to engage children in worship. Funding will also be used to provide sub-grants, scholarships, and stipends for congregations and leaders, after the model of the diocesan One Body & One Spirit fund, and to create and curate resources to open expansive worship opportunities. The grant will also cover additional personnel necessary for the program.
Missy Morain is missioner for Christian formation for children and youth at the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
“The goal is to be able to resource congregations where they are and give them tools, but also give them funding to create the spaces within their own context,” Morain said.
Morain envisions a network in which congregations throughout the diocese share tips, best practices, liturgies, and more. The diocese will help support this community by creating a library of developed resources and connecting far-flung parishes to form mutually beneficial relationships. “Our initial resource is The Immersed in Worship framework and assessment, to help congregations engage in their own wondering around the place of young people in their congregations,” Morain said.
While some parishes already have robust intergenerational congregations and successful ministries serving children, others may want to engage these audiences, but not know where to start, Morain said. “There are all sorts of amazing things going on in this diocese that we just don’t know about, because we don’t have networks to share around the diocese,” she said.
During the end of the Covid-19 lockdowns, Morain was working at St. Matthew’s, Pacific Palisades, with the Rev. Stefanie Wilson to create family worship that took place outdoors. The popular service they created remains outdoors to this day and continues to grow. What’s more, it’s truly intergenerational, with 94-year-old congregants, babies in arms, and everyone in between. This experience now inspires Morain’s work at the diocese and her plans for the Lilly Endowment grant. “We want to be able to open up expansive worship opportunities, which hopefully will enrich all of our communities and create spaces in which congregations can truly welcome, truly say that we are welcoming to families, we are welcoming to children,” she said.
Morain noticed that when she shared about the new worship service at St. Matthew’s – its successes as well as the failings along the road to that success – she discovered that congregation leaders were just as eager to learn as she was to share. She saw how meaningful it could be to have a diocesan network to share successful program ideas as well as potential pitfalls to avoid. Since St. Matthew’s is well resourced, Morain said, they were able to develop the program and put it into action. Some congregations that have the drive, and potentially the ideas, to create new services and intergenerational spaces may need resources and support to get them off the ground, Morain said. That is where she plans for the diocese and sub-grants of the Lilly Endowment money to come in.
It was during her work at St. Matthew’s that Morain initially came across the Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. As she investigated, she realized that it would be perfect not only for St. Matthew’s, but for the entire diocese. With approval from Bishop Taylor and Canon McCarthy, Morain wrote the proposal and applied on behalf of the diocese.
Morain said she did not expect to receive the competitive grant and is still in shock at the good news. After she had sent in the application, when Bishop Taylor asked about the grant proposal, Morain told him, “but we’re not going to get it.”
The Los Angeles diocese is one of 91 organizations funded through the latest round of the endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative. The organizations 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. Morain said that the diocese is already collaborating with Virginia Theological Seminary and looks forward to working with other organizations that received the grant as well.
“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.”
Morain has been at the diocese for only a month, and already these developments are well underway. Having received the funding for this new program, Morain said, “now we get to actually make it happen.”
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.
Contact Missy Morain at mmorain@ladiocese.org