Christian Parenting & Caregiving Initiative
We support Christian parents and caregivers in learning, adapting, and embracing time-honored practices to share their Christian faith and values with their children.
With support from the Lilly Endowment through its Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative, First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica is leading a collaborative of Queens congregations to explore, test, and share new models for Christian parenting and caregiving rooted in faith at home.
Our ultimate goal is to build resilient youth whose faith supports their wellbeing, healthy development, and engagement in their communities. Recognizing the barriers families face to engaging children in traditional church-based programs today, we seek to equip parents and caregivers with the tools and confidence to claim their spiritual agency and infuse everyday life — from daily routines to milestones and holidays — with faith practices that resonate with and shape their families.
Parents
We empower parents to become the primary spiritual leaders in their children’s lives.
“We’ve heard from many parents who are seeking to nurture the spiritual lives of their children, especially in their daily activities, and looking to churches and other faith-based organizations for support,”
— Christopher L. Coble
Lilly Endowment’s vice president for religion.
Our program advances two objectives aligned with the Lilly Endowment’s Christian Parenting and Caregiver Initiative:
Help cohort congregations to identify needs/opportunities within their congregations and to develop and implement specific programs that address these unique factors, in order to intentionally help parents and caregivers implement practical and effective strategies for sharing their Christian faith and values with in their care.
Promote replicable models and scalable strategies, implemented by the cohort congregations, that directly support Christian parents and caregivers in learning, adapting and embracing time-honored practices to share their Christian faith and values with their children.
Two Cohorts
Twelve churches are participating in the Queens Congregational for Christian Parenting initiative. Each church is revisiting traditional parenting practices while developing new ones shaped by a distinctively Black cultural context.
We seek to create and model effective programs that reflect the unique needs of each congregation and support a range of family structures and situations. Knowledge gained will be shared broadly to promote best practices and scalability.
We invite you to learn about their emerging models below.
Cohort 1
Partners
Resources
Press Release Lilly Endowment’s Christian Parenting and Caregiving Initiative
Program Administrators:
Rev. Patrick O’Connor, Lead Pastor, First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica
Rev. Anna Taylor Sweringen, Grant Director
Haley Flack, Grant Writer
Rev. Aqueelah Ligonde, Lead Consultant, Ministry Architects
Sean P. Williams, Lead Consultant, Ministry Architects
Cohort 1
New Jerusalem Worship Center
Majority Baptist Church
Amity Baptist Church
Deliverance Baptist Church
First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica
St. Mathews Community AME Church of Hollis
Cohort 2
St. James-St. Matthew's Lutheran Church
Dabar Bethlehem Cathedral
St. Joseph's Episcopal Church
Presbyterian Church of Saint Albans
Mount Olivet Baptist Church of Hollis
St. Peter's Episcopal Church
