"Church Planting" to Save Christianity is Not Working

Old denominations and newer ones all talk about starting new churches. There is some logic to this, older and long established churches have older members that will die off. They are located in older communities that do not have growth or many children. So, why not start churches where the growth and younger people are located?

There are lots of new churches, "church plants", started every year. The Southern Baptist convention has planted 6,000 new churches. These 6,000 new churches have barely increased the total number of churches in the denomination. The total number of Southern Baptists have fallen by 10% a year for several years.

The link video says that about 80% of new churches fail by five years. There is little publicity about these failures. They are small groups that just stop meeting and wherever they met the space is closed. Small businesses open every year and they fail at a similar rate. According to the video, denominations have "training" sessions for people wanting to start churches. They also have some money to help with early costs. But, people who took the training and received the money fail at a high rate.  

The faithful often say the "need" for new churches is great. This need is the large number of "unchurched" people. It is correct to say these days that there are millions of people who do not go to church. Do these people "need" a church? Mostly people have limited time and limited money. To say they "need" a church it to say they need less spare time and have money they don't need for anything else but to give to a church that will likely fail. Reality is churches need members more than people need churches. 

Denominations who say they can reverse their decline by starting new churches have not looked at the numbers.