Working Together Is Just Cool: Teaching Kids about the Cooperative Program

As part of my job at WMU, I have the unique opportunity to meet and hang out with elementary kids from around our denomination as their parents attend the Southern Baptist Convention in June each year. And it seems to never fail — I always meet a sweet family who is super excited to tell me about their Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors, or Children in Action group in their home church. This past summer in Indianapolis was no different!

This year, I met the Zwerner family from Capitol Heights Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama. As the kids checked out for lunch on Wednesday, our team gave each child a gift bag that contained a letter from Sandy Wisdom-Martin, a certificate, a Cooperative Program Badge/Patch, and an activity page. I think all of the kids I met were excited to receive this small gift, but the Zwerner kids were especially excited.

During small group time and our time on stage this year during childcare at the Southern Baptist Convention, Sarah Murray (WMU children’s editor) and I shared about what it means when Southern Baptists to work together.

First, on stage, we taught the silly “pirates” how to put their resources together to purchase something, just like Southern Baptists put their resources together to fulfill the Great Commission. (The pirates were stage characters who often had to learn a lesson as a teaching moment for the kids.)

Second, in small groups, we challenged kids to build the craft stick units we are collecting for our houseboat project (almost 600 to add to the collection!) and to consider how we can do so much more when we all work together. We said and chanted Working Together so many times that I am still dreaming about that important phrase!

So, when the Zwerner family checked out Wednesday for lunch, gift bags in tow, they made sure I knew the Cooperative Program badge/patch they earned during their time in childcare was going to be placed on each child’s vest the following week at their group’s badge ceremony. There were high fives all around, pictures snapped, and a promise of pictures from the badge ceremony.

They each walked away with a piece of paper with my signature on it and a badge for their vest. But my prayer is that they walked away knowing how important the Cooperative Program is to Southern Baptists in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Working together means we get more done. Working together means missionaries have vehicles or tools or schools for their kids to attend. Working together means our denomination has great universities and seminaries. Working together means we can do more in Christ’s name.

Working together means kids like those in the Zwerner family in Montgomery, Alabama, get to learn why being a Southern Baptist is about following Jesus and sharing His name with the world, but it’s also amazing because we have a mechanism like the Cooperative Program that makes us all so much more effective than we could ever be individually.

And, working together is just cool.