Carl George used to say, some church splits are actually churches that were “pregnant” and didn’t take the initiative to plant. He argues that it’s a healthy part of any church’s development to reproduce.

So the story is mixed. But somehow God still works out his purposes in the midst of our mess.

“how many of the new church plants have been started due to congregational splits, how many are strategic/supported plants?” often I’ve found that many church plant’s that I’ve met have been out of a leaving of a congregation/denomination rather than a community planting a church out of an established community.

where I am now we’d have a number of what might be called church plants, but many have come from some kind of theological debate that just “couldn’t be lived with” and so a split (which some would name as a “plant”) has occurred. In many of these cases the plant would attach itself to a pentecostal denomination.

not detracting from the questions you’re raising, but think there are a few other factors that might add to such a high percentage from the pentecostal church.

i think there might actually be a few more reasons for low numbers from the established churches, but i dont have time to go into them atm.