I don't think a church fails because the soil was not cultivated. Read about the dozens of church plants in the book of Acts. There is a conspicuous lack of hoeing and cultivating going on here, except that which has been done invisibly by the Holy Spirit. There are churches of Samaritans, Greeks, Ethiopians, Romans and of course Jews. The Jews had the most cultivation of all, thorough preperation for the gospel, scriptural knowledge, cultural context, shared metaphors and memes. Yet the church exploded among the Greeks and Romans with simple, short evangelistic messages and demonstrations of the power of the Spirit.
Here's how the traveling evangelist/healer Paul put it:

I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

I don't want to be presumptious, or critical here (and boy, do I include myself here), but I really think we fail when the church planter/pastor does not operate in the full power of the Holy Spirit.

Infertile soil?

I'm curious... What makes a church successful? If we consider only longevity, or many the number of people that go there, or the amount of tithes that are given, I think we miss the point.

Does a pastor leave a start up church because he believes he is failing? Is that biblical? We always hear that if I, as a member, don't like what I hear from the pulpit, or what I'm "feeling", that I need to stick it out and believe that my faith will prevail because God is calling me to do great things right where I'm at. Or worse yet, that I just need to find my "place" in that church and use my "gifts" to better that church. I always hear about people being talked down to for leaving when the going gets tough. And now, I'm supposed to believe that a pastor can define what is a successful church and what is not.

So now we have a pastor that is blaming himself because the church is "failing". And maybe, just maybe, he didn't really hear from God that this is where he should be so he will just go somewhere else and start again. Or, maybe not start another church at all and leave the ministry and become just another church goer.

Let me pose this to you:

A church starts up because a pastor is called to open a church. God is calling one of his own to go out and spread the message to a certain area. What if an atheist is in that neighborhood and hasn't been reached? The pastor gets the call, "Plant here, saith the Lord." The pastor responds. The atheist responds and accepts Christ in the first year of that church's existence. The church is not growing, the tithing is minimal, that pastor gets discouraged, five years has gone by and the pastor is thinking of closing the church. But wait...

The once atheist, now a believer, goes out on a mission, that he is called to, and brings millions to Christ while the church at home is not growing. Is that church a failure? Is that pastor a failure? Where does it say that a church has to have consistent tithing to be successful? Where does it say that the church numbers have to grow to be successful? Where does it say that the pastor is the measure of what defines a successful church?

I think we miss the point when we look at worldly rulers of measure to define what is a successful church. God might have had that one specific requirement for the church to exist so that the atheist could be saved and be used by God for His work.

Paul talked all the time of persecution that made his life miserable. Because the pastor is scrapping to make ends meet, is that just a failure of his ministry or is that a failure of where his faith is?

We need to allow God to do his work. The pastor planted the seed, the new believer watered the field, and God gave the increase.

Pray that the pastors of these start up churches continue to focus on planting the seed and not worry about the increase. That isn't their job.

Another thought that just came to mind as also this passage Matthew 10:14:

"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town."

This also shows that we do the planting and the watering and God gives the increase. If he doesn't give it, then we aren't obligated to stay. But, that also doesn't mean we have to leave either. It is just letting us know that we are not to blame.

We do our best to spread the word. If people are not responding, that is not my concern.

Sounds like a garden show, all the sowing and tilling of the soil. I now know that I have planted many seeds, but I don't know if all of them grew. However, I do know God loves it when we try. We may never know whom we have brought to Christ, nor will we know if they grew in Christ. He only asks that we try, so bring as many as you can in rememberance of He who loves us the most. Besides counting only leads to math and I don't like math. In God's Grace John