But the opening paragraphs and Step 1 of the article really got my mind racing. I chose to take the statement made in Step 1 and apply it to my church consulting interests. For those of you who did not click on the link in the paragraph above, here is what got my attention:
"Ponder over the fact that the ideal human tribe number is thought to be about 150. This anthropological and sociological figure was reached at through studying people's interactions in societies and it is also thought to apply to the online context. After all, there is only so much buzz and chatter that you can actually manage to take in without feeling overloaded. As such, if your facebook friends amount to more than 150, it may just be that your online tribe capacity is bulging at the seams and that there are people there whom you rarely, if ever, interact with."What does this have to say about the modern church? I don't know about you, but I don't see many churches striving to optimize at the 150 attendance mark. Most that I know of are looking to be the next Second Baptist here in the Houston area. They have fully bought in to the belief that "bigger is better".
In fact, most churches today are embracing more and more of the social networking culture. My local church has a facebook page. Our denomination has a facebook group page. Every pastor that I know is active to some degree or another on facebook. Most are embracing the "immediacy" of the social networking technology as a communication and ministry tool. In fact, recently, we were asked and we texted answers to poll questions to the pastor in the middle of his message as a way of making the message more interactive. It was very interesting. However, my mom probably would not approve of me texting in church! So, don't tell her.
But consider the statement from the article that I quoted above. How is it that we in the church embrace so much of what modern society and social culture and anthropology has to say when it comes to mass communication theory, and yet we completely ignore so much of what we know intuitively in our gut to be true?
I am just talking out loud here, but I bet you won't hear anything tomorrow from your pulpit that says that your local church has gotten too big to really function in the intimate way that Jesus Christ intended it to. I am not taking a shot at any particular pastor here. But the reality of the situation is that so many pastors, are looking to grow the church, grow the staff and "outsource" much of the traditional pastoral functions to junior staff and small group leaders rather than becoming intimately acquainted and involved in the lives of the whole church body.
Is it possibly because there are more than 150 of us who attend on a regular basis? Is it possibly because our seminaries are training a generation of pastors who are not being taught or mentored in such a way that their heart's desire was to know the people of the church intimately and stand with them through tears of joy and sorrow?
I am not theologically opposed to a church of more than 53,000 like Second Baptist. I am really not. I was a member of that church for several years. I just know that I have experienced the greatest levels of intimacy in my life at churches that hovered around the 200 range. At 200, I know who will do the weddings and funerals that come along. I know who will dedicate the babies. I know who I will call in the moments following a tragedy. Maybe, just maybe, to borrow from another cultural phenomenon and the 1980's sitcom known as Cheers, I am looking for the kind of response that Norm Peterson got every time he walked into the bar. Everyone shouted, "Norm!"
Norm belonged there. Everybody loved Norm. And everybody knew his name.
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