In October, United Brethren members voted on the issue of uniting our denomination with the Missionary Church. One week into November, we're hearing scattered results from local church voting. Very little, so far, favors joining the Missionary Church. At this point, I fear that it won't happen.

This greatly disturbs me. I'm convinced that this is the best future for our denomination, and that only bad times lie ahead otherwise.

I lament the great synergies that won't happen. I think the Missionary Church would gain greatly by the new energy, perspectives, and ideas that the United Brethren church would bring. They would be much better off with us, and we with them. But separately--well, the Missionary Church will continue moving ahead. But the United Brethren church will gradually go the way of the Primitive Methodist Church and other small denominations, that just aren't big enough to really do anything.

But maybe things will turn out differently. Early in the day, one week ago, "exit polls" showed Kerry winning, but that turned out wrong. What I'm hearing mostly is from small churches. We'll see.