Lilly Endowment Awards $1.2M Grant to Center for Christian Music Studies

Baylor’s Center for Christian Music Studies in the School of Music has been awarded a four-year $1.2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. as part of its Strengthening Congregational Ministries with Youth Initiative.

The initiative’s primary aim is to support projects — such as Baylor’s new Building Bridges to the Future project — that help congregations design, test and implement new models for nurturing the religious lives of middle and high school youth and for engaging them more fully in the congregations’ mission and ministries. The grant to Baylor will enrich current programs in the Center for Christian Music Studies related to strengthening youth participation in worship, including the annual Alleluia Conference and Worship Lab. Also, the grant will help fund new programs for youth-focused spiritual formation and vocational discernment.

“This Lilly Endowment grant will help Baylor’s Center for Christian Music Studies strengthen and support worship and music training for teenagers and their integration in worship leadership that is collaborative with older adults,” said Randall Bradley, DMA, The Ben H. Williams Professor of Music and professor of church music, who also directs CCMS and the church music program in the Baylor School of Music.