Dr. Christy Woodbury-Moore, Associate Dean of Doctoral Studies, Assistant Professor of Spiritual Formation, and Director of Supervised Ministry, also serves as the Grant Manager for “Passing the Faith,” the Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative at MTS. She stopped by to share an update on the program and answer some questions.
+First, can you give readers some general information about “Passing the Faith”?
The Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative is a grant program from Lilly Endowment to develop and improve programs that assist parents and caregivers in passing on the Christian faith to children within their sphere of influence. The grant aims to support congregations (especially pastors, children, and youth ministry staff and congregational volunteer leaders) and other Christian organizations by developing and providing resources, programs, and educational opportunities that will create and/or strengthen ministries to help interested parents and caregivers share their Christian faith and values with their children.
The grant also seeks to support Christian parents and caregivers by developing and providing resources and programs to help them learn, adapt, and embrace time-honored practices to share their Christian faith and values with their children.
At MTS, we have adopted the title “Passing the Faith” to describe the core of what we desire to accomplish through our efforts.
+ What are some of the programs put in place since the funding was received? What are some of the key discoveries made about how Christian Parenting & Caregiving connects with the MTS community?
At MTS, we have three main goals:
1. To utilize the Godly Play Model as an approach to telling the stories of the bible to children ages 3- 12.
2. To develop an Adolescent Curriculum that will serve as conversation starters to assist parents and caregivers of pre-teens and teens in sharing their faith with them.
3. To share with the community the work we have been doing and to encourage churches to join us by hosting an Annual Passing the Faith Christmas Gathering.
Godly Play
When we started, we engaged four Children’s ministries in four local congregations. We have since added nine more churches to our roster. We are engaging churches in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Alabama! Our desire was to expand our footprint. God has allowed us to do just that.
Adolescent Curriculum
We have a team of five–which consists of Youth Pastors, Christian Educators, and Parents–helping us write the curriculum. The curriculum will include five-minute lessons that parents and caregivers can use in the car or when they are engaging in day-to-day activities. It will also include a select number of in-depth lessons that can be taught during the Sunday School hour or Bible Study time.
We want to engage multimedia sources like music, movies, art, anime, and much more. We want this resource to not only speak to young people’s lived experience, but also connect to the things they enjoy so that they understand that faith is not exclusive to a church building but is a part of our everyday living.
Annual Passing the Faith Christmas Gathering
Every year, we host the Passing the Faith Christmas Gathering. This is our opportunity to share our work with the community. The Annual Grant Gathering Event has become a favorite and staple of the Christian Parenting grant program. Participants, faculty, staff, and children look forward to it. The grant team enjoys planning it. This year was nothing short of amazing. Our site coordinators conducted a poster presentation and our adolescent curriculum team talked about the curriculum and asked for feedback from the participants. During the poster session, the site coordinator shared pictures from their site and they conducted a mini Godly Play lesson to show how Godly Play works within their congregations.
Again this year, Harmonic South String Orchestra, an organization that teaches young and old how to play string instruments, performed for the event. There were 40 adults and 5 children at the event. To say thank you, we gave each family two children’s books and a gift card.
+ What is the future of the Christian Parenting & Caregiving Program? What are y’all planning next, what’s on the horizon, and what are some big dreams?
We are looking forward to some exciting activities in the upcoming year. We want to add three new churches to the Godly Play program next year. Last year, we incorporated Godly Play into Vacation Bible School at Metropolitan Baptist Church. We want to do that again with two other churches. We would like to plan a Children’s and Youth Conference for 2027. That idea is still in the infancy stage. We will use the rest of 2025 to brainstorm the idea and 2026 to plan it. We want the conference to be fun and faith-filled. Obtaining feedback from children and youth is essential to this endeavor.
+ How can people connect with this work or support it?
Monica Brodie serves as the Grant Administrator. She would love to hear from anyone interested in joining us in this work. Monica can be reached at mbrodie@memphisseminary.edu.
To learn more about the Lilly Endowment’s Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative, click this link: https://lillyendowment.org/christian-parenting-initiative/
