Children’s Ministry Director receives Mary Hill Davis scholarship to attend Conclave, new curriculum from Texas Baptists Intercultural Ministries

Hennessy Barboza first attended Conclave NextGen conference in 2017, “when it was [exclusively] for the youth [leaders].” In October 2025, she returned to the conference after being named children’s director at Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana of Carrollton earlier in February.

“I was given the opportunity to serve as children's director, and I wanted to get some more information and see what other churches were doing as far as this ministry,” said Barboza. “I am a firm believer of going and learning and reaching out and seeing what others are doing, and modifying it and applying it to what works best for our congregation.” 

At Conclave, Barboza attended the two “Children's Sunday School Training” breakout sessions, presented by Texas Baptists Intercultural Ministries, that taught children’s ministers a curriculum that “gave way for the time that you need to teach in both [English and Spanish].”

“[This curriculum] is important, especially to the students who have come from another country or some that have been here, and may be second or third generation Hispanic [and] they don't speak Spanish at all, so they feel like they're stuck in a difficult situation because they want to be part of us because they understand our culture, but maybe not the language,” said Barboza. 

Barboza said, “the curriculum is beautiful” because the first week of each lesson in the curriculum, “you give the background story of the Bible and you go in and really touch on, ‘What is the Bible saying about this specifically?’... then the second week you go in and it's the application process of that story.” 

“Some things [I learned in the breakout sessions] were allowing time for translation… then taking that same lesson and expanding it the following week, which was something I've been looking for, ‘How can we make this just a little bit longer and kind of hit it home twice?’” said Barboza.

Nancy Jackson, the author and presenter of the curriculum, told children’s ministers that she purposefully wrote the curriculum to be “clear [and] simple [and] concise.”

“She was like, ‘If you get a brand new item, you're not going to read the full pamphlet, you're just going to read the step-by-step instructions with just the images and the broken down keys,’” explained Barboza. “Sometimes with materials that are given to us, we're given the full curriculum, and it's like, ‘Okay, how can we break this down even simpler?’ Because we have to give time for the kids who need to know it in another language or both languages.” 

New Sunday school curriculum helps “bridge [the gap] between two languages”

Barboza was given the curriculum from Intercultural Ministries. Before applying it to her ministry, she used The Gospel Project, a children’s bible study curriculum from LifeWay. She felt “connecting [the material] culturally to our kids” was lacking. 

“I can not express how much we needed the training. I have been looking for material that was simplified and in-depth and took its time for the kids to understand not only in English but their heart language as well,” said Barboza.

She said Primera Iglesia Bautista Hispana of Carrollton has “the most diverse Sunday morning you could think of,” so it's important to understand how diverse Hispanics are and how important it is to “bridge [the gap] between two languages” for their children. 

Barboza said each family in the church has “so many things that we can all bring to the table” and the new curriculum “allows for any student to walk in and be able to understand the gospel, which is our ultimate goal.” 

“It allows just any kid to come in and feel welcome, and have [the gospel] presented in their language, in a way where, if you've been in the church forever or you just walked in, it's accessible to them,” said Barboza. 

Mary Hill Davis scholarship allowed “a church like ours [to be] reflected” at Conclave

Barboza said she was excited “to see a church like ours reflected” upon returning to Conclave and attending the Intercultural Ministries Children's Sunday School Training. 

“Although we feel small right now, we have a large family in Texas, and we have a large family with other churches that we can grow and build with,” said Barboza. 

Barboza shared that her church staff applied for a scholarship from the Mary Hill Davis Offering to attend Conclave. 

She said “it was beautiful” to return and go before the congregation to share that they received the offering, and encourage them that “your offering directly came to us,” as they give to Mary Hill Davis and Lottie Moon Offerings annually. 

“I thought that was a beautiful touch because I had a lot of fun sharing with the congregation, ‘This is what we learned. This is what we did,’” said Barboza. “I hope that more churches take advantage of [the Mary Hill Davis scholarship] because it was nice to see the bigger churches there, [but] I would have liked to see a lot more smaller churches attend and know the opportunity is available.”

To give a gift to the Mary Hill Davis Offering, visit iamtexasmissions.org.  

To learn more about Conclave NextGen, visit conclavenextgen.org.