I just finished the third part of a three part sermon series from the Duluth Vineyard entitled The Three Marks of the Vineyard Church. I listened to it as part of my personal plan to branch out and hear more about what is happening around the country, especially with the Vineyard Movement.

Why the Vineyard Movement? Mainly because that is the movement God has placed me in at the moment and so I figured I should learn as much about them as possible. While I have been apart of a Vineyard church here in Idaho, it has been really cool to hear some of the other pastors and folks teach.

So far I have been able to listen to sermons from South Africa; Duluth, MN; Wales, UK, Yorba Linda, CA; and Seattle, WA. I've downloaded some other from Canada and other states across the Union. (You got to love the internet!!)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. [@more@]

During the Brenda Gatlin's third sermon, she mentioned that churches are dieing in the US at a rate of 30 to 40% a year!! That is huge!

While I was unable to find any reports online to back that up, I would lean towards that being a correct number. I know from past studies that most church plants fail within 3 years; pastors usually quite within 8 years and most churches have under a 100 attendees…

Seems like a doom and gloom paragraph…

All this makes me wonder if there is a better way to do "church" beyond the standard Sunday morning deal…

Of course, maybe it's because the Church as forgotten that it's suppose to be taking care of the poor, healing the sick, free the captives, giving hope to the hopeless, preaching the Kingdom of God and basically loving everyone – especially those who don't look or act like you do.

Praise the Lord for those churches who are doing the stuff. May they continue.