WHO CAN RESIST A COOKIE?

What is better than eating cookies? Giving them away; it's a sure way to show others your love and concern for them.

Lottie Moon, a missionary to North China between 1873 and 1912, may have begun the cookie ministry. She reached out to the Chinese children with American tea cakes. It opened the door for many new friendships, and as she became friends with the children, she also became friends with their mothers.

Ways to share cookies and Christ's love:

• What: using cookies as a vehicle to reach out to strangers. The cookies can be the gift alone, or combined with a visit or an inspirational message.

• Why: giving cookies says you care. It is also a way to brighten your day.

• How: Decide who you want to target with your homemade cookies. If it is an institution, check with the administrator and outline your ministry. Once a month - either in a group or individually - bake, bag, and freeze cookies. Package them in plastic bags topped with a bow, or recycled containers (coffee cans, fruit baskets, or cottage cheese containers decorated with contact paper and stickers).

• When: Create a church schedule for baking, creating written messages, and decorating containers. Deliver cookies at the same time each month, or each week.

• By whom: This can be a churchwide ministry and is ideal for a small group within a large church. A Sunday school class can share the ministry, or even a few men or women - or teens - who meet once a month to bake. Even one person, from his/her kitchen, can have a successful cookie ministry.

• To whom: college students will devour your cookies. Drop off cookies to church visitors with a simple note, "We were glad you worshiped with us today." Use cookies as part of your regular visitation to the congregation, or supply the pastor with cookies for his/her visit to parishioners.

• Where: hospital waiting rooms are a good place to share some baked goods with weary families. Select a waiting room (an emergency room late at night or an outpatient room early in the morning) and provide about four dozen cookies. Include the name and telephone number of your church. Jail inmates need to know someone cares for them. Ask to provide cookies for Christmas. This may open an opportunity for your church to begin a ministry visiting and leading Bible studies or may just be a warm outreach for those with a sweet tooth. Bag about six cookies and a card for each inmate. Also consider a cookie ministry at children's homes, homeless shelters, Ronald McDonald-type houses, homes for disabled people, drug and alcohol rehab centers, and women's shelters. Nursing homes often have residents who do not have families nearby and would love visitors. Some residents are on special diets and would require a different recipe for a low-fat or sugar-free cookie.

  Lottie Moon's Tea Cakes:

  * 2/3 c. butter * 2 c. sugar * 3 beaten eggs * 1 tsp. vanilla * 6 c. flour * 1/2 tsp. soda * 2/3 c. milk Cream butter. Gradually add sugar until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix flour and soda together. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Dough will be soft. Roll out thinly on a floured surface. Cut dough with a floured knife into squares. Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet for 8-10 min. in a 375-degree oven. Makes 5 dozen.

From Giving Cookies and Love by Grace Earline Campbell. Copyright (c) 1998 by New Hope Publishers, Birmingham, Ala., 1-800-968-7301. Used by permission.

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