The link

Have a look at the correlation between number of churches started and growth in numbers of people in these figures from the Queensland Assemblies of God. Let's pop across to the UK where Peter Brierley tells the same story:

Now to the US and the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) one of the rapidly declining mainline churches. . .

There is no other story. Whatever your preferred model of church "big, small, traditional, emerging, contemporary” if you aren't multiplying churches you're in trouble.

The question is: Why do some groups multiply new churches and others close them? That's hard to answer. But not impossible.

Here's an easier one: What happens to a movement/denomination that doesn't care whether they are planting churches or closing them down?

History.