After Five-Year Pilot, $2 Million Project Expands Partnership With Alliance of Baptists
January 13, 2026
- Author
- Jay Pfeifer
Kevin Dougherty, Mark Mulder and Gerardo Mart铆 at one of the project churches in Nashville, Tennessee, in July 2025.
Churches that THRIVE for Racial Justice, a partnership between 国产福利精品推荐 and the Alliance of Baptists, has been awarded a $2 million project from Lilly Endowment, Inc 鈥 including $1 million in direct funding and $1 million in matching funds 鈥 to expand its groundbreaking work advancing racial justice in Christian congregations.
国产福利精品推荐 received the new grant from Lilly Endowment through its Thriving Congregations initiative.
After a successful five-year pilot, the funding expands the initiative from 27 to 50 congregations over the next five years. It will double annual in-person learning gatherings, introduce regular online cohorts and add pastoral retreats that address key issues identified in the pilot phase 鈥 ranging from leader isolation and issues of church polity to tensions around inclusivity and the burden of consensus. Each year鈥檚 work deepens the denomination鈥檚 theological and practical capacity to 鈥渢hrive鈥 by embodying justice and reconciliation at the congregational level.
Nearly all original participant churches instituted new ministries, liturgical practices, reparative initiatives, and sustained relationships across lines of race and difference. Many leaders report that these experiences reshaped their understanding of Christian community, yet also revealed persistent challenges that require deeper structural and spiritual engagement.
Led by William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology Gerardo Mart铆, along with (Calvin University) and (Baylor University), the 国产福利精品推荐 initiative brings academic expertise in the sociology of race, religion and congregational life to a robust collaboration with the Alliance of Baptists 鈥 a progressive denominational body of roughly 120 congregations committed to social justice. Together, the partners cultivate learning communities where clergy and lay leaders examine how racialized structures operate within their congregations and develop theologies and practices that affirm dignity, accountability and equity.
鈥淭HRIVE exemplifies Davidson鈥檚 mission to inspire just action rooted in intellectual rigor and ethical conviction 鈥 translating scholarly inquiry into lived transformation,鈥 Mart铆 said. 鈥淔or the Alliance of Baptists, it marks a decisive move from aspiration to implementation in dismantling racialized systems within church life. Together, this partnership models how academic research, theological reflection, and local ministry can align to pursue the moral and communal flourishing of faith communities.鈥
