When my parents were first involved (and by relation, me) we had a lot of new people. It was a fun, exciting time. Our fellowship grew so large we had people sitting in our loft that overlooked our living room, and more in the kitchen because we didn't have enough room.
And we grew so big HQ decided we needed Way Corps.
And that effectively ended the growth and we lost most of the people in the branch. it was the same where I went WOW. We had growth until they moved the Limb to our town.
Once legalism and confrontation showed up in the form of the WC, people lost their enthusiasm and left.