What is MP:4?
In the summer of 2010, my wife and I developed this concept that was born out of other attempts in previous ministries to develop a growing and ongoing children's ministry. The concept began in the spring of 1996 when I was serving a church in Avondale, Louisiana. Julie and I decided to combine several activities into a simple plan to minister to children on Wednesday evenings. While serving a church in Harrison, Arkansas and while facing a children's ministry challenge, we took the past ideas that we had experimented with since 1996 and developed the MP:4 ministry. The ministry is designed to give churches an option for Wednesday or Sunday evening children's ministry.
The term "MP:4" means: Mission Possible with 4 core values. A logo that we used at a previous church was designed by our church Multimedia person. My wife and I are presently designing a logo that will permanently belong to the MP:4 copyright design. The term "Mission Possible" was chosen to encourage people that children's ministry is possible. Because of challenges that changed as ministry changed, we decided to base the ministry off of the working model of Vacation Bible School (VBS). This would mean a program with rotating classes. We decided that the 4 core values would be as follows. 1)Bible Study: The Bible would be taught at each meeting. The other 3 core values would be expressed through three rotating classes. Each night, children would experience a Bible study and one other core value. What I explain next may seem confusing so hang on for the explanation.
The remaining core values would be Missions, Music and Service. Service would be realized by having the children learn songs that they would sing to the congregation on Sunday mornings, writing letters to missionaries or sending supplies collected for missionaries, or doing service projects in the community. Music would be taught as a class rotated to after or before the Bible study. The purpose for music would be to teach children the concepts of music and prepare for opportunities to minister to others through music. Missions would be also be a class that would be rotated to before or after Bible Study. The [purpose in the mission focus would be to introduce children to mission work and missionaries. They would learn about missionaries from the SBC North American Mission Board and the SBC International Mission Board. The hope would be that the children would connect with some of these missionaries along the way. As in VBS, crafts are always a moment that brings out the creative side of kids. The idea would be to design cards and simple crafts that could be given away in some type of ministry project.
The schedule is meant to be flexible so that any church congregation could implement this type of ministry and structure it to meet the needs of that congregation. In the beginning of this ministry, we chose the following setup.
Based on a "Four Wednesday Month", each night always had a Bible study. When we divide the kids into groups, one group would go to bible study as the other group went to that night's rotation subject, like music or missions. We chose a consistent schedule similar to the one in the table below:
| First Wednesday | Bible | Music |
|---|---|---|
| Second Wednesday | Bible | Missions |
| Third Wednesday | Bible | Music |
| Forth Wednesday | Bible | Crafts |
| Fifth Wednesday | Family Night | |
When there would be a fifth Wednesday, we would have what we called family night. The entire church came together to cook food and set up games to be played by the kids. We also purchased large and medium size inflatable jump houses. This activity would be similar to a block party but held in the parking lot, or, indoors if the weather was bad. The idea behind Family Night would be that the parents would gather inside to see the kids sing a song, receive awards, then, move to the fun area for food and games. The adult members would be trained to mingle with the families that came and use this time to connect.
The Bible Study could contain materials from older VBS or any Children focused curriculum. The music also could be anything from older VBS material or other children's music curriculum. The mission studies can come from Southern Baptist Convention material provided through Lifeway Christian Resources, WMU, IMB, or NAMB websites and materials. Crafts can be purchased from companies such as Oriental Trading of local craft stores. Some of the crafts could be projects that make items to be given to nursing homes, hospitals and other similar organizations. We intended not to design materials that would block the Creative minds of ministry workers. The design of MP:4 is to give an open and creative method for children's ministry leaders to do ministry in a way that fits the local congregation.
At this time, Julie and I are working to put a more detailed guide into print that can be used by those who do not have internet access. The goal is simple, grow the Kingdom of God by Growing Children by equipping and empowering children's ministry leaders. And one more thing, Have fun in a big way and let the kids see YOU having fun!