Congregations grow when they: 1. have a pastor who works hard 2. have a pastor who is a solid preacher 3. are in growing areas 4. have a history of being stable and normal In Lutheran Land, people are still repeating this decades old line that the way to bring people into your congregation is through "relevant" forms of worship. But you can look at the statistics of our biggest congregations that are the most dedicated to the whole Praise Band Pastor Blue Jeans thing and the vast majority of them are waaaaay down in attendance over the past 10 years. The exceptions that I know of are congregations with pastors who, despite the evangelical style trappings, are pretty solid gospel preachers. And I see this in my own circles. I know of liturgical congregations that have grown and ones that have withered despite facing similar demographic landscapes. The difference is that those that have grown had pastors who worked hard and preached faithfully and the people were friendly and inviting and the ones that withered were served by lazy guys with Correct Theology and/or who sometimes had congregations that would chase off anybody he might bring in right away. The moral of the story is that "young people want the liturgy" and "young people want praise bands" are both somewhat false narratives.