Thursday Morning, and it is another nice one. Yesterday's wind cleared a lot of leaves off of the neighborhood trees. Dan's front yard Maple is almost void of leaves, and he did a good job of getting them cleaned up. His backyard Maple however, is one big beautiful red ball above his roof line as I see it from my kitchen window. I suspect it will be another week before it drops.

Yesterday was productive at the churches. I got several things done as far as bulletins are concerned. I also finished my December 3rd sermon. That leaves me three more to write, and I have those "kind-of" thought out and have jotted down some notes for them. 

Much of my day today will probably will be spent with a group of pastors. I belong to a group of what we call "Traditional Pastors", i.e. pastors that try their best to keep their ministry and messages on the conservative side and try to keep their messages "Biblical". So many churches, denominations, and pastors are jumping on all of the latest "worldly practices" and are perverting the scriptures. As a result, many churches and people are leaving the mainline denominations. I belong to the United Church of Christ (UCC) and it has gone "totally woke" in its interpretation of the scriptures and gospel. It breaks my heart to see it happening. Our local UCC churches belong to a subset of the denomination and conference called the Evansville Tri-State Association, (ETSA). When I began with my ministry there were 33 UCC churches in our area. Today there are 22 churches remaining in the ETSA. Another one of our churches left the denomination just two weeks ago. Now that I'm retiring in a few weeks it will be interesting to see what the parish does; will they stay UCC or will they leave the denomination too. They have already attached themselves to another more conservative association; but so far have not left the denomination because I have encouraged us not to leave but to try to stay and stand up for what we believe. But, as the world get crazier, and our denomination gets farther out in left field, It gets harder to defend staying. Whoever is going to come and fill my position, will have to address these issues . 

So, It's time to fix some breakfast. Have your self a wonderful day. Peace.