Get Some Nuts!

Apparently there is something called a “Dunbar Principle” that says that one person can only hope to sustain a total of 150 real relationships. Of course, anyone who has been a part of a church knows that. Churches with more than 100 members tend to actually function more like two or more churches that meet together, so a church of 300 for example is really 3 or more circles of relationships all occurring in the same facility. One way of thinking about it would be to remember that a church can only be as large a group as can all meet together for a party or fellowship. Fellowship, not worship, is where real “Church” occurs.

In modern thinking, successful churches are measured by how many members they have—the more members, the better the church. In reality that is a poor way to appraise a church body. As has already been said on this blog, such churches—if seen in the light of 1 Corinthians 12 would be described as obese. They have a lot of body parts that have never done anything functional. They simply sit.

A better model of church success would be to measure not how big the church is, but how fertile. At the risk of offending some for the sake of a metaphor, the church needs to get busy. If truly functional churches are limited by how many relationships people can sustain, but God wants the Church to grow, then churches need to make some baby churches. Where are the reproductive organs of the church? They are the church planters. If God’s design is for His Kingdom to grow, then His body will have members that are called to do this ministry. They are out there, they just need to be empowered and supported to do what God is calling them to do.

As Mr. T has said: “Get some nuts!”