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 giventhrough the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program. Also, contact your stateBaptist 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 and then click on resources. Some stateconvention 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 themoney 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 allover the world. That means most of the Cooperative Program gifts go directly to takingthe gospel around the world. The remainder of theoffering goes to supporting Southern Baptistseminaries 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 thatmissionaries are better equipped to declare God's glory among the nations.