Do We Really Need Another Church Here? Part 4

I came across an article in the Christian Post about the 10 warning signs of a congregation in trouble and it led me to revisit a series of posts I wrote about the role of new church formation in America. Church attendance has been in decline for decades now, from 1992 to 2003, average attendance at a typical church service dropped by 13% whereas the population of America had increased by 9% SEE MORE TRENDS HERE
I don't pretend to know exactly why this is, but I'm sure it has much to do with the growth of Universalism in that same time period. If there is no one path to heaven, if in fact there are many paths, and if you get there eventually regardless of your belief system or adherence to a moral code of conduct, why go to church when you could be relaxing at Starbucks with a latte and a newspaper? I find it revealing that what little growth is occurring in the midst of dreary decline is happening in evangelical denominations. Denominations that are unswerving in their adherence to Gospel teaching, and perhaps most important, their devotion to the Harvest.
Which brings me back to the 10 warning signs of a congregation in trouble. While I would imagine that the article is extremely useful in individual cases, it completely misses the point of what to do to halt the overall decline of Christianity here in America. I'm sure I'll take some flack here for oversimplification, but if the only growth in today's church is in denominations that preach the Gospel and are devoted to missions, perhaps if more churches did that they'd grow too.
And that, finally, brings me to the original topic. Do we really need another church here? This is relevant to my situation because my church, a Gospel teaching, missions oriented church, is considering  planting another church. There is no lack of seating in area churches, there are other Gospel churches in our area doing wonderful work for the Lord, this area has every kind of worship format known to man, and yet still....pews sit empty every Sunday at churches all across our county. I fear what has happened is quite simple, rightly or not, a significant number of people have decided that organized religion, traditional churches if you will, have no relevance in their lives. And building another sanctuary, even a gospel breathing sanctuary does not address this attitude. That does not mean these people are to be given up on, quite the contrary. They are church bashers, not Jesus bashers.
I'll try to summarize my thoughts in a later post, although if you read Parts 1-3 of this series you'll get a sense of where my head is on this matter.