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I love cookies! I love eating them. I love making them. I love the taste of them. I love how they smell when they come right out of the oven. I get excited just thinking about cookies. Can you sense my joy over good cookies?

Recently I’ve been thinking about how making cookies relates to church planting.

As I work with church planters, I’ve seen that many of them are more interested in designing cookie jars than they are in making cookies. They spend a lot of time and effort and money on having great cookie jars. They look at other cookie jars and try to copy the best designs that they can find. They dream of having large, over-flowing cookie jars – Mega Cookie Jars.

Church planting isn’t about the cookie jars – it’s about the cookies!

If you’re not making any cookies, you really don’t need a cookie jar.

Check out my thoughts in this video.

From my perspective, church planters need to be focused on making cookies, not designing cookie jars. They need to be consumed with the process of making cookies. They need to even be obsessed with making cookies!

Yet the focus of lots of the training out there for planting churches and some of the books out there is on the Sunday worship service, not making disciples.

I just want to encourage church planters to focus on making disciples who make disciples. If you’re not making disciples, you don’t need a worship service. When I read the Gospels, it seems that Jesus not only modeled disciplemaking, He sent His disciples to make disciples. He didn’t send them to start worship services.

Design your cookie jar after making some cookies.

Don’t think that designing your cookie jar will automatically produce cookies. You still have to make them.

Today’s Missional Challenge

Make cookies!