|
|
|
navigation Welcome contact information Third Day Churches links
Alternative Worship |
Do Numbers Count? by Gary Goodell
When talking about counting numbers, I am not talking about some new numerology or strange set of numerics, but more basically about what happens when certain numbers of people gather. This is not science, and I am not pretending to be some kind of group dynamics expert. But it has seemed to me after many years of observation and participation that when different sized groups gathered they ended up with certain set of dynamics. We do know that God has called us to gather, to group, to get together. And I think that 90% of the whole issue of the church gathered gets played out, not by what it does but simply the very act of gathering, (Hebrews 10:25). And if the exhortation holds that we will need to gather even more as that Day approaches, then it challenges us to pay attention as to what is going on in these different gatherings. Much of what I have written about in the last two decades about "doing church differently" has been directly related to an experimental approach of the gathering of believers around the numbers laid out in Exodus 18:21. Jethro gave counsel to his son-in-law Moses to place leaders over different sized groups of 10, 50, 100, and 1,000 for more efficient administration of Israel. Where it does seem that numbers or size matters when it comes to both life and Scripture, I also will be the first to confess there are problems often with "why" we count people. Unfortunately, like David numbering Israel, we can get in trouble when we count heads for the wrong reasons. The "numbers game" of today's church has woefully become nothing but a great burden placed on too many church leaders shoulders. Too often artificially setting or impacting the core of the leader's identity, simply by the "how manys" of the weekend gatherings. In this sad scenario the counting of "nickels," and "noses," or "budgets, buildings, and bodies," has both crushed and/or deified way too many leaders in their feeble attempts of obedience to God. There always seems to be someone else who ends up with better stats or better numbers. With many of the marketing "bean counters," of our day over-ready to compare those numbers or results. Besides these are the pulpit heroes we platform. The largest church, the largest Sunday School, the biggest ministry, the most TV or radio stations. Setting numbers, or leveraging plateaus or marketing thresholds and lids or ceilings get used to define someone's success or lack thereof, and ultimately their identity and their send of worth,m rather than their gifting and calling. So whether it is megachurch or microchurch, basing a quantum expectation upon the gatherings of God's people for the wrong reasons has proven to bring unrealistic expectations and misses the whole adventure of what is happening in a certain sized group. My prayer has always been that any study serious of numbers, whether in life, Scripture or in simple group dynamics would not stem from of a need for competition, but rather an appreciation of the outcomes of these natural dynamics that come when specific-sized groups gather. Numbers And Pictures In Scripture Many know the prophetic implications of the many often-quoted numbers in the Bible. 3 and the Trinity, 7 and the days of Creation or theFeasts of Israel, 12 and the Tribes of Israel, the Disciples of Jesus or the Gates of Jerusalem, numbers like 50 for Pentecost or the Year of Jubilee. When I was a young denominational pastor you needed 25 to be a chartered church, and years later I would go to a conference specifically targeted to "Breaking the 200 Barrier." The premise of this conference was that at around 200 people attending the church meetings on a regular basis meant a pastor needed to shift from the "shepherd" model to the "rancher" model where he worked through other designated key leaders. The New Testament refers many times to different sized configurations gathered around Jesus. John the Beloved, the 1, Peter, James and John, the 3, the 12 disciples and then apostles. Jesus sent out the 70, or 72, 2 by 2 in Luke 10:1, the 120 gathered in the upper room when the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost in Acts 2. Jesus did not necessarily use words like, "bunch," "crowd," "gang," or "team," but often gave specific and definite connections to numbers. Even in His feeding of the 5,000 men plus the women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, He requested that they be sat in groups of 50 and 100 in Mark 6:40. In the chapter on Lost Things in Luke 15, Jesus when speaking of a shepherd, He specified that this shepherd did not lead an ambiguously sized flock of any size but a specific flock of 100, Luke 15:4. Numbers Count If you Google group dynamics you will find that the consensus of much research over the years indicates that the smallest viable group size seems to be somewhere in the range of 5 to 9. As the experts note, a group of 2 can be tremendously creative (as in parents), but requires deep commitment by both parties and could become polarized. Notably, often the difficulty of a 2-person business partnership is compared to that of a marriage. A group of 3 is not always stable, as one person can feel left out, or one person can control the others by being the "split" vote. A group of 4 can devolve into two pairs. Consensus is that at 5 the feeling of "team" really starts. At 5 to 8 people, you can have a meeting where everyone can speak out and everyone feels highly empowered. However, at 9 to 12 people this begins to break down with not enough "attention" given to everyone or the meetings risking becoming either too noisy, too boring, too long, or some combination thereof. Research again backs the suggestion that the optimum size is 7. Likewise, it's fairly easy for us to see and agree that a dinner party starts to break down somewhere above 7 or 8 people, as do also tabletop games of both the strategic at more than 5 and role-playing varieties at more than 7. It is interesting to note that recent church planting movement stats from India indicate that a House Church there consists of an average of 6 baptized believers. This does not include who all may be attending or wanting to attend the specific House Church, but does indicate what constitutes a core group for that House Church. When The Size Changes The Dynamic Changes The small group difficulties that start somewhere between 9 to 12 people are pretty obvious. I read years ago that when 12 started attending regularly, 1 or 2 stop talking, and when more than 12 try to regularly attend 1 or 2 stop coming on a consistent basis. As you grow past 12, it seems you must start specializing in a different style of communication, which often becomes direct questions and reports from certain individuals usually prompted by a leader. As the group approaches or passes 25 people, leaders have to now spend significant time communicating and/or facilitating these groups towards a different dynamic than the small group. Even though these groups grow and pass the optimum size for what is considered a small group they still have the potential to stay away from the old clergy/layman divide and make room for the priesthood of all believers. If any group grows larger than what is consistently considered a small group and more challenging to administrate, the new size can still make room for more than a monologue by the elite few and move towards a dialogue church where each believer has a right to participate, I Corinthians 14:26. As you approach the number of 150 things can begin to be unmanageable. Once past that mystical 200 barrier you are really starting to need mid–team leaders (In church life these would likely be specific staff members with specific target groupings, or sub-congregations). And it has been noted that when you do get up past that 200 plus, maybe at 350-500 people, is when these mid–team leaders start working the best. Back to the smaller group, if perhaps 12 are too many, why are 7 a better number? Research indicates that when groups get larger than about 7, the communication process can flip from the interactive consensus kind of process to the non-interactive transfer of information. Also noted, that if you have more than the number of 7, one or two dominant figures can sway the group. If it's a smaller number of 7 or below, you have better inclusive personal interaction, and get more of a consensus or an agreement outcome. When these smaller groups move towards larger groups the multiple gift-expressed experience happens rather than the consistent sharing of personal and intimate information. Another finding is that in the larger groups, people are very strongly influenced by the dominant speakers. In other words people's opinions tend to go with the dominant ones and not with the person they spoke with or interacted with next to them in the discussion. While in the smaller groups you get quite the opposite result. It has been discovered that dominant speakers have no greater impact than anybody else in the smaller groupings. What seems to determine what people come away with in terms of their changes in attitudes and shifts in beliefs is from the people they actually interacted with during the discussion. And this is exactly what we expect and enjoy from the smaller group, and the kind of discussion process it fosters. Get 5 to 9 people engaged around an open meal, and somehow talking with your mouths full seems to be the norm. Whatever The Size When we begin to witness certain things happening with certain numbers, the result is often better management and preparation rather than the discouragement of certain sizes, particularly smaller ones. In a culture stung with the marketing ego that "bigger is better," we must always be cautious as to why we "count" certain things. Again, numbers are not to be used against one another, but as in the cases in the model of Jesus and Scripture, the truth is that we can better steward what is happening relationally when the group is the right size, and become aware of the shifts and changes that can occur so we can accommodate different sized groupings and thus different dynamics. Let's not fall into the quagmire of "comparing ourselves," as Paul warned us, but rather let's enjoy the fluidity of the natural outcomes of natural sized groupings. Jesus comes along and busts all of the so-called experts with His admonition and prayer that when it comes to He and the Father, He prays that we would be "1" (John 17), and promises that where 2 or 3 are gathered together in His name, He is in the middle. So, remember, "bigger is not always better," and "smaller is not always bad." Numbers do count; they just need to be counted correctly!
|