Growth vs. Equilibrium

Churches are set up and expected to grow. When we talk about growth we are talking about numerical growth first of all then we talk about growing deeper. However, nature is set up not to grow at all. Nature is setup to establish equilibrium. Why are we set up to think that churches must grow all the time? Why do we value growth over equilibrium?? Do other traditions (Buddhist, Jewish, Taoist, etc.) focus on growing as much as Methodist Texans? What is the value of growing numerically? More than that, what is the valuing numerical growth over and above other values?

Even ministers who do not talk about numeric growth in these terms use other language to emphasize numerical growth as a high value. Usually terms like "get new members" or "evangelism" or "reach out", have the underlying assumption of numeric growth.