Cherish Our Children

Cherish Our Children is a congregation-based ministry of prayer, education, relationship-building, and action to implement the ELCA Message on Commercial Sexual Exploitation. This ministry is an affiliate of the ELCA.

What Cherish Our Children Does

Cherish Our Children began in the Minneapolis Area Synod and has spread to nine other ELCA synods. Each synod creates a Task Force or Ministry Team to generate awareness of sexual exploitation as well as provide training and support to congregations.

The heart of Cherish Our Children is in congregations, where leaders work in teams to pray, speak, and act on behalf of children in the congregation and community.

The 2007 Minneapolis Area Assembly met and adopted a resolution that memorializes the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to direct the Church in Society Unit to implement the Cherish Our Children ministry in the synods of the ELCA with the goal of having at least 50 percent of the 65 ELCA synods actively involved in ministry by 2015.