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Nurturing Children Learning Community

September 10, 2024

Your church is invited to join a with cohort.

Worship As One: Learning with Children with Disabilities About Worship & Prayer

April 2025- April 2027

With Ministries invites your church to apply to be a part of our Worship as One project, focused on including children with disabilities meaningfully in worship and prayer. It will involve a new framework for designing accessible, intergenerational worship that meaningfully engages children with disabilities and their families. Likewise, it will focus on equipping parents with resources for nurturing the faith formation and spiritual practices of their children with disabilities between Sundays.

Each church commits to…

  • Establishing a core reflection team of 4 people:
    • One pastoral staff
    • Children’s ministry leader
    • parent of a child with disabilities
    • other church member with relevant experience (e.g. disability ministry leader, special educator)
  • Meeting regularly with us for 8 quarterly check-ins
  • Meeting regularly (preferably monthly) as a core reflection team to implement ideas and gather feedback
  • Experimenting with new worship and prayer practices
  • Sharing insights as a part of a community of practice
  • Helping us capture the impact of change efforts
  • Praying for this work

With Ministries will…

  • Conduct an initial site visit to see the church’s current practices and meet with their team for orientation and goal setting
  • Provide a Worship As One Toolkit of resources
  • Offer training on universal design and personalized design practices
  • Facilitate shared learning through a book study,
  • Convene churches for quarterly online cohort check-in meetings
  • Return for a concluding site visit
  • Pray for your church

Take this opportunity to transform your church to worship as one body!

Express Interest Here:

Fill out the Form

Read our Grant Press Release:

Grant Press Release

Looking for Friendship Ministries?

We have a new name but our mission and vision remain. We are so glad you are here!

 

Continue to With

All Together Leader’s Guides come with two variations – Track A and Track B. Here’s a quick description of each so you can see what the best fit is for your small group:

Track A:

For the leader of a Friendship Group –a group made up of adults with intellectual disabilities, for whom material is prepared. There are adults without intellectual disabilities partnering to facilitate learning. Activities, printouts and other materials are very visual, simple, and offer non-verbal response and participation options.

Track B:

For a group made up of people with varied abilities all participating in the decisions for the group’s experience. Activities, printouts and other materials may have more words and intellectually challenging components, though options (and tips!) are still offered.

Get Started

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Discover how we’re creating belonging for people of all abilities with material from our resource library. Sign up for free, preview our resources, and start your journey towards inclusive ministry.