The Episcopal Church in Colorado Awarded Grant for National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life 2025
The Episcopal Church in Colorado has received a grant of $2,999,922 from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its National Storytelling Initiative on Christian Faith and Life 2025. The grant will support Show & Tell: Stories for the Nones, Dones, and Disconnected, a five-year storytelling project designed to engage Millennials, Gen Z, and Latino communities with a reclaimed vision of mainline Christianity—one that is inclusive, dynamic, and deeply relevant.
The Episcopal Church in Colorado is one of 60 organizations from across the United States that have received grants through the initiative since 2024. The groups include media organizations, denominational judicatories, church networks, publishers, educational institutions, congregations, and other nonprofit charitable organizations.
Through its Office of Communications—Caffeinated Church—the Episcopal Church in Colorado has built an ecumenical hub where churches learn to tell their stories with clarity, creativity, and confidence. Known for high-quality production, collaborative partnerships, and deep audience engagement, Caffeinated Church works ecumenically to help church communities speak in ways that connect both inside and far beyond their walls.
Show & Tell: Stories for the Nones, Dones, and Disconnected is Caffeinated Church’s locally rooted, nationally amplified initiative to share compelling expressions of Christian life and faith from mainline Protestant communities. The purpose of this project is to reconnect spiritually curious but institutionally disconnected individuals—especially Millennial, Gen Z, and Latino communities—with the Christian story through compelling, timely, and deeply resonant digital media.
The project integrates three core components:
Equipping Congregations will support 90 congregations in identifying and producing compelling congregational stories, with each church producing at least five high-quality digital media pieces—over 500 new stories in total.
Common Good will produce 150 short-form videos and 22 documentary podcasts (in English/Spanish), designed for digital natives, offering inviting glimpses into faith, justice, and belonging within the mainline, positing a compelling alternative vision of Christianity amid clamorous online voices.
Concerning Christianity will be a narrative podcast in two bilingual (English/Spanish) seasons. Led and hosted by Gen Z, the series will follow young adults as they navigate faith, doubt, and identity in uncertain times. With probing curiosity and honest concern, each episode will highlight candid quests for meaning, authentic relationships, and a deeper understanding of Christianity’s role in our lives and in society.
Bishop Kym Lucas underscored how Show & Tell extends the Church’s witness into new spaces:
“Storytelling is at the heart of Christian life. Jesus taught in parables; the Church has witnessed through testimony. Today, the digital commons is where many first encounter those stories. Show & Tell equips leaders with hands-on training, mentorship, and ready-to-use resources so their stories ring clear and reach those seeking connection, meaning, and hope.
I’m excited for this new Caffeinated Church initiative. Show & Tell is a joyful next step in our ministry: a scalable coaching-and-creation model that helps congregations—large and small, urban and rural—tell true, hopeful stories that meet people where they are.”
The aim of Lilly Endowment’s National Initiative on Christian Faith and Life is to help organizations identify, produce and share with a wide variety of audiences compelling stories that portray the vibrancy and hope of Christian faith and life.
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly, Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Although the gifts of stock remain a financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its founders’ hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A primary aim of its grantmaking in religion is to deepen the religious lives of Christians, principally by supporting efforts that enhance congregational vitality and strengthen the leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment values the broad diversity of Christian traditions and endeavors to support them in a wide variety of contexts. The Endowment also seeks to foster public understanding about religion by encouraging fair, accurate and balanced portrayals of the positive and negative effects of religion on the world and lifting up the contributions that people of all faiths make to our greater civic well-being.
Project Team:
Ashley Graham-Wilcox
Project Coordinator
ashley@caffeinatedchurch.org
Mike Orr
Congregations Coordinator
mike@caffeinatedchurch.org
The Rev. Joseph Wolyniak
Production Coordinator (English)
The Rev. Miguel Escobar
Productions Coordinator (Spanish)
miguelcastillejaescobar@gmail.com
Young Adult Advisory Council
Latino Advisory Council