In the early 1990s, I was living in Boise, Idaho, where a group of volunteers was working to establish an organization to build homes for people in need following the model developed by Habitat for Humanity. The organization now known as Treasure Valley Habitat for Humanity was initially called Boise Valley Habitat for Humanity. While raising funds for its first house, the group attracted Millard and Linda Fuller, who were part of the founding of Habitat for Humanity. Millard was an inspirational speaker who helped provide the momentum needed for the completion of the first Boise Habitat for Humanity home. He told the story of how he and Linda, after achieving financial success early in their lives, were moved to give away their possessions and start life over at Koinonia Farm, a community farm near Americus, Georgia, founded by Clarence Jordan. From there, the Fullers spent three years in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, organizing local people to build affordable homes without profit and providing homeowners with interest-free loans to own them. Millard called the program “Biblical Economics.” Visiting after his presentation, someone asked him what he had done to become wealthy early in life. The answer was cookbooks, specifically church cookbooks. As a college student, he began publishing cookbooks for churches. Churches would collect recipes from members, which he would organize, print, and bind into books to sell as fundraising items. By employing college students, he was able to keep labor costs low and squeeze a bit of profit from each cookbook sold. He was a self-made millionaire before he turned 30.

I don’t know the details of how Millard Fuller’s cookbook printing business worked, or even how much money he accumulated. But I do know the power of recipes in the life of a congregation. For all of my adult life, I have struggled with my tendency to overeat and gain weight. Sometimes I joke about that struggle, saying, “When you attend church potluck meals as part of your job, it is hard not to overeat.” Of course, it is silly to blame church buffets for my health habits, but people do understand the appeal of a potluck meal.

Looking back, it is hard to remember specific meals shared in the congregations I served, but I have attended hundreds of funeral lunches over the past five decades. As a pastor at a funeral lunch, I was usually near the end of the line, having greeted the mourners. Sometimes the dishes on the serving table were getting nearly empty when I passed through the line. By that time, I was usually getting pretty tired, having worked hard to lead a meaningful funeral service and provide care to a grieving community. A pastor, however, enjoys certain privileges. There would be times after the mourners had left the church and the funeral lunch dishes had been washed and put away, that I would return to my office to find a plate with a few sweets on my usually messy desk. Dona would have saved a few of her molasses cookies and left them for me, or there would be a couple of Lois’ lemon bars or a delicious oatmeal-raisin cookie. Over the years, I collected the recipes for many of those treats.

There are a half dozen well-used and food-stained church cookbooks on the shelf in our kitchen. A few of them have some extra recipes hand-penned at the back. Some of them have commentary written in the margins of the recipes. Anyone who has tried to replicate the treats from church potlucks knows that the original cooks had tricks of preparation that don’t show up in recipes. A story I have often repeated is of a toddler who asked his mother to bake the cookies he had enjoyed at their neighbor’s home. He couldn’t pronounce Phyllis’s name, so he called the neighbor Fifi. His mother obtained the recipe from the neighbor, and the boy eagerly waited as she mixed and baked the cookies. When they had cooled, he eagerly took a cookie and bit into it. With a serious expression on his face, he said to his mother, “Mom, Fifi tricked you!”

There are recipes for beloved foods that don’t have all of the information. And there are foods whose recipes never end up in the church cookbooks. For years, when Christmas was nearing, the church office would have a plate of cookies that included Mavis’ rum balls. I don’t know the recipe, but I used to theorize that Mavis didn’t drink hardly any alcohol and only purchased rum once a year when it was time to make Christmas cookies. Since she didn’t drink rum, she didn’t want to waste it and added a bit extra to the recipe. I don’t think one would want to drive a car or operate heavy machinery after eating several of Mavis’ rum balls. The chatter in the church office got a bit louder with a bit more laughter when Mavis arrived with her plate of Christmas cookies every year.

Another church member once confided in me that while other bakers knew to soak raisins before making oatmeal cookies, the real trick was to soak them in brandy instead of warm water. That detail is not mentioned in the cookie recipe printed in the church cookbook.

Another privilege of being a pastor is that the collection of recipes is for me a collection of memories. I not only remember the foods, but the people who prepared them. I not only remember the funeral lunches with Dona’s molasses cookies and Lois’ lemon bars. I remember the funerals for those women and the memories that their recipes invoke.

Boise Valley Habitat for Humanity saw the first family move into one of its homes in February of the year that I moved from Boise to Rapid City, South Dakota, where I was honored to be part of the founding of another Habitat for Humanity affiliate. As we worked on building homes, we were served meals prepared by volunteers. Millard and Linda Fuller may have given up the business of publishing church cookbooks, but they founded a fantastic organization of volunteers who continue to share good food and recipes. Whenever I taste good food, I remember the generous people and the love with which they prepared those meals.