By Erica Blevins Nye
Children’s Formation Team co-chair

Community of Christ is called to hope! And, our hope for the future is bound to our children. If we inspire them, emerging generations will carry fresh visions for Christ’s peace into arenas that older generations never could have imagined!

With this promise of hope, the church has launched a Children’s Formation Team to reimagine ministry for children from birth to age twelve. This article introduces this team and its vision for building an intergenerational faith community that enlivens new generations.

The Children’s Formation Team was launched in 2024 under the Faith Formation Team and Youth Ministries. The team includes expertise in education, childhood development, and church leadership.

An Intergenerational Vision

We are ministering in a dramatically new cultural landscape. Demographic and cultural shifts have reshaped the church in the Western world and what the world needs from us. In this changed context, we recognize that faith formation must be simple, flexible, accessible at church and home, and most importantly, grounded in intentional loving relationships.

We envision a faith community where children are not simply welcomed but are valued as vital companions on our faith journey. We can engage children’s full humanity—their questions, gifts, and callings. Congregational life can be a home for shared wonder and exploring faith concepts alongside our kids.

Faith formation for this new generation centers on discovering the inspiring, countercultural Way of Jesus and practicing it together creatively. The Children’s Formation Team will craft resources that reinforce this relationship-centered intergenerational approach.

We envision a faith community where children are not simply welcomed but are valued as vital companions on our faith journey.

Guiding Aims

These goals shape the Children’s Formation Team efforts:

• Safe, inclusive, and grace-filled environments: We create spaces where children feel free to ask questions, make mistakes, and experience unconditional love. Children always should be physically safe in our community.
• Developmentally appropriate formation: Resources and programs will be tailored to different stages of childhood development. We include knowledge and experiential learning.
• Faith through practice: Emphasize shared practice. Integrate opportunities for children to try spiritual formation, empathy, peacemaking, service, and ethical decision-making.
• Intergenerational discipleship: Encourage a culture of creative intergenerational interaction throughout church life.
• Shared Community of Christ identity: Inspire children to claim and celebrate their unique identity in this special international family of faith. Make clear our sacred story, beliefs, principles, and distinct call.

Initial Projects

The Children’s Formation Team will begin with:

• Scope and sequence for learning: We have organized a foundational matrix to guide concepts that children learn at each developmental stage, ensuring continuity from early childhood through young adulthood. We will curate lists of recommended children’s books, Bibles, and other materials.
• Faith formation in the home: Increasingly families cannot connect to church regularly, leaving parents or grandparents as kids’ sole spiritual guides. We are designing simple, flexible resources for parents and caregivers to lead religious formation at home. This includes a set of Community of Christ Enduring Principles cards and online how-to guides.
• Intergenerational discipleship: We will craft worship and gathering resources for all ages to learn and practice together. We will promote the rewarding fun for adults being committed spiritual guides for kids or “spiritual grandparents.”
• Priesthood ministry with children: We will help priesthood members rethink their specific ministry roles with children in mind, including participation in sacraments and celebration of milestones.
• Camping and gathering ministries: We will draw on the expertise and creativity of youth leaders across the church to create flexible, reusable resources for youth camps, family camps, and retreats.

The Children’s Ministry Team will help produce these foundational resources and more, but its biggest hope is to inspire individuals and congregations to reimagine their own ministries. What children and families do you know whom you could grow a friendship with? How can your congregation reorient itself toward mutual intergenerational spiritual exploration? How might your own priesthood covenant lead you into serving with children?

Children are the locus of our joy and hope—today and into the future! We invite you to join in as we become a faith community where children are beloved, integrated, and inspired!

Children’s Formation Team

Julie Bover
Margo Frizzell
Barb Harmon
Katie Harmon-McLaughlin
Humberto Tinsman
Kevin White
Laura Bolton, co-chair
Erica Blevins Nye, co-chair