You Give to What You Love
     
    Psalm 96:3
     
    Focus: Southern Baptists believe that cooperative missions is the most effective way of
    achieving Acts 1:8.
     
    Purpose: To help children understand that gifts given through the Cooperative Program
    support Southern Baptists’ involvement in global missions.
     
    Object: dollar bill
     
    Scripture: "Declare His glory among the nations, His wonderful works among all peoples"
    (Psalm 96:3, HCSB).
     
    Lesson: Prior to the lesson, find out what percentage of your church's undesignated offering is given through the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program. Also, contact your state Baptist convention Cooperative Program office and ask for enough copies of "CP – Making a Difference" or another brochure on CP to give to children hearing this lesson. For current resources, log on to www.sbc.net/cp and then click on resources. Some state convention offices will have CP material written specifically for children.
     
    Ask; "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" Allow for several responses. Reach
    into the backpack and pull out the dollar bill. Say: "Every week, you and other members of
    our church family place offerings like this one into the offering plate. Do you know where the money given to our offering goes from there? What are things that are paid for with that
    money?" Allow for responses; affirm those which are correct and help correct those
    which are not.
     
    Continue: "A very important thing that some of our offering supports is the Southern Baptist
    Cooperative Program. Do you know what cooperate means? It means you work with others
    to make something happen. When you are on a sports team, you don't play by yourself, do
    you? No, you play with teammates, and you have a shared goal. In the same way, Southern
    Baptists cooperate to make missions happen. There are organizations called Baptist
    associations, state conventions, and large organizations such as the North American Mission
    Board and the International Mission Board. The people who work through these
    organizations are telling people all over the world about Jesus.”
     
    "For every dollar you give to the Lord through our church [state your church's percentage given through CP] goes through the Cooperative Program." Reveal how much that amount is
    per dollar. For example, if your church gives 10 percent, then that is 10 cents of each dollar.
    After stating this cents amount, say: "That may not seem as if our church gives a whole lot.
    But, you need to know that through the Cooperative Program, our gifts are combined with the gifts given by more than 43,000 other Southern Baptist churches, and that ends up being a whole lot!”
     
    "In 2005, Southern Baptists worked together to give more than $522 million through the
    Cooperative Program. Some of these offerings went to missions in our state, the North American Mission Board, and the International Mission Board to support missionaries who are sharing the gospel all over the world. That means most of the Cooperative Program gifts go directly to taking the gospel around the world. The remainder of the offering goes to supporting Southern Baptist seminaries and other important causes.”
     
    "A person once said, 'Your heart is where your money is.' That means that you'll spend your
    money on the things you love and cherish. For Southern Baptists, that means we have a
    world missions heart. God's heart is for every nation to know Him as Lord." Read: Psalm
    96:3 and close with a prayer, thanking God for gifts given through the Cooperative Program so that missionaries are better equipped to declare God's glory among the nations.
     

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