A video camera filming a woman sitting in front of a bookshelf in a library.

Listening Tour

We are learning how children view worship and experience God by bringing staff from the Sharing Faith Initiative to churches where we record interviews with children, staff, parents, and volunteers during a Sunday School hour or after service.

We’d love to learn from your church…

The goal of the Listening Tour is learning how kids view worship and experience God. Staff from the Sharing Faith Initiative will record interviews with children of your church, staff, parents, and volunteers. We can host the interviews during a Sunday School hour or after worship - whichever works best for your congregation. All we need is a classroom in your church! If you’d like to learn more or invite us to your congregation to learn more about what your kids think about worship, please check out the resources and contact forms below!

Young boy sitting on a wooden chair in front of a blue backdrop with religious symbols and the text 'Sharing Faith Initiative, Faithful Preaching Project & Children's Sermons by Children'.

Following the Listening Tour, we will send a word cloud generated from the key words identified during the interviews and a curated video with interview highlights. Participating churches are then invited to be part of a cohort of church staff members for further discussions. Best of all, you will get a renewed vision of how your church is equipping the next generation of church leadership.

How does the Listening Tour benefit participating churches?

Listening Tour FAQs

  • We value learning from the experiences of children as well as those who work with them.

  • The interviews will be audio and video recorded depending on parent/guardian permission.

  • The recordings will only be viewed by those who have been granted permission in an official form signed before the interviews. Special permission must be given for the recordings to be used in other ways.


  • Permissions for each interview will be kept on a detailed, protected spreadsheet and videos will be kept on a secure site according to those permissions.

  • We plan to spend 10 minutes with each interview. Our hope is to have 5 interviews with children and 5 interviews with those working with children/leading worship, for a total of 10 interviews at each church. If each interview takes 10 minutes with a few minutes of transition between interviews, you can expect our team to be interviewing for 2 hours.

  • Ideally this will not interrupt the flow of your Sunday morning in any way. We can set up the interviews when it doesn't interfere with your morning routine.


  • We will be publishing data on this website and through our monthly newsletter. No names will be used in this data.


  • You may e-mail our team at sharingfaith@austinseminary.edu or express interest in the form above.

Media Release Forms

The safety of all participants in our Listening Tour is our utmost concern. Our team met with an Institutional Review Board at the seminary to establish the media release forms that are required from all participants. Click the buttons to review or download the forms.

Media Release for Child
media release for Adult

Scenes from Listening Tours

A young boy sitting on a chair in front of a blue banner with the text 'Sharing Faith INITIATIVE' while being filmed by two adults in a room decorated with children's artwork.
Young boy sitting on the church altar, holding a microphone and reading from paper during a church service with children sitting on the floor in front of him.
Three smiling women at a registration desk with lanyards, papers, and a cup of iced coffee.
Two women sitting inside near a window, one speaking with hands raised and holding a clipboard, the other sitting behind a professional camera on a tripod, smiling, with a brick wall in the background.
A plush puppy dressed in a white dress, sitting on a blue chair in front of a large blue banner that reads 'Sharing Faith Initiative, Faithful Preaching Project & Children's Sermons by Children'.
A woman in white robes holds a metal bell over a chalice on a table during a church service with children observing.

Interested in scheduling a Listening Tour for your church?

Click to fill out our interest form
Download Info Flyer