It was Wednesday morning and I was in charge of putting together the Royal Ambassador lesson for THAT NIGHT. I had nothing! I had tried to get a speaker for the boys but couldn’t make connections. I could talk about a mission trip I went on but they had heard those stories. We could go play football, but that just felt wrong.
Cooperative Program. It just hit me that the boys needed to learn about the Cooperative Program. How was I going to help them learn about the Cooperative Program (CP) and take up an hour doing it? Here is what I did….
1. Find 2-4 really manly colors of paper.
2. Create strips of paper with the following words, one per strip: You, Money, Church, Association, State, SBC, Missionaries, Seminaries, and ERLC. I group the strips by color.
3. Download 2 videos from the BGCO website: http://www.bgco.org/archives/397
Cooperative Program Process
CP – Do You Know Their Stories
4. Mix up each team’s strips and have them try to put in order. After a few minutes I showed the CP Process video. They went back and worked more, then repeat video and finish up strips. The boys were running back and forth from TV to table trying to get them in order before the other teams.
5. Talk through the process and show CP Story video.
6. Review.
This is a 15-20 minute activity that works great as a way of introducing your boys, or girls, to the Cooperative Program. Because it hits on several learning style levels it is a good way to engage kids in the process. Besides, it never hurts for the leaders to be reminded about CP either.
It did not take the whole hour, but the boys enjoyed the process. I gave them opportunity to Q/A afterward and that allowed some stretching of the time past 20 minutes. One of the questions was “Why do we do this?” It was a great segue into talking about the Gospel, God’s Plan, and the Great Commission. Needless to say, the hour was gone before we knew it!
Hope this helps your kids learn about the Cooperative Program.
