Prairie Association Fall Meeting 2007

I attended the Prairie Association UCC's Fall Meeting at Trinity UCC in LaSalle, IL on Saturday. I love being in the Prairie Association! Here are the highlights of the day for me:

• Hospitality. The people of Trinity UCC in LaSalle were gracious, warm, helpful and extraordinarily kind.
• Encouragement. Lorin Cope - UCC minister for conference relations, told us some hilarious stories and also encouraged us in ministry and in life as he challenged us to "do something outrageous for the gospel." (Hey Lorin -- did you just find yourself on a Google search?)
• Books. We didn't have a retail book store on site this year, but we did have a "I don't want these, maybe you will" book exchange that also raised funds for Our Church's Wider Mission. I picked up a few -- including this hilarious (unintentionally) old book from Guidposts that has some laughable illustrations of people Jesus encountered in the Bible. It's called Jesus loved them: Living portraits of people who knew Jesus.

Prairie Association UCC's spring meeting is May 2-3, 2008 at Pilgrim Park Camp and Retreat Center in Princeton, IL.