In the post World War II years, beginning in 1945, US churches experienced a rapid period of growth, as did the US population itself. This growth in church members peaked for the most of these churches by 1965, and since then the numbers of members has declined precipitously. The churches in the cities of America showed this particular symptom of the end of Christendom in the most dramatic form. Urban congregations suffered the greatest losses during this time period. Such a dramatic decrease in city church membership was the norm for this era.
Every American city has at least one such congregation - and sometimes several.
These approaches to congregational development were designed to foster numerical growth in church membership through the use of specific, intentional marketing strategies aimed at reaching people who were not participating in the life of the local church. One of the underlying assumptions of church growth proponents is that numerical growth in the ecclesiastical sector, like growth in the economic sector, is a necessary feature of congregational life. In a free, competitive, market economy, a business either grows or dies. There is little room in this model for sustainable, renewable economic activity. Similarly, in the church growth movement, victory in the ecclesiastical marketplace is defined virtually entirely by numerical criteria, assuming that if a church is growing it automatically is successful.