And yet, and yet…

Currently I’m reading the book The Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I love Gladwell’s consistent web of culture and philosophy to see the trends and ask the “why?” questions. It’s refreshing for me as a person who is rarely satisfied with the quick answer.

One of his major points in the book is that the Tipping Point of change in a culture happens in a local context and is connected to the “Magic Third.” To badly summarize, the Magic Third is the first third of a population adopting a cultural move. He uses it with the ideas of white flight specifically. He then talks about superspreaders and their impact within the bounds of a smaller community. I really recommend you check out the book and give it a read.

As a pastor, the thought obviously jumps to mind about how the principle of the Magic Third applies in the church or in the spread of the Gospel. For instance, I think it’s interesting that at the time of Pentecost in the book of Acts, the estimated population of Jerusalem was about 25,000 and the numbers of those saved between Pentecost and Peter’s sermon before the Sanhedrin was probably in that Magic Third of 5,000-8,000 people. Seeing the movement of the church from there to the ends of the earth, it’s a principle we should probably take seriously.

How does that apply to Christian movements now? We often look at the statistics of the lostness of the world and in our country. It becomes pretty discouraging for the everyday actions of believers. However, if we take Gladwell’s observations seriously I think we may be focusing the wrong direction. If the nature of rapid spread of ideas and beliefs is most effective in a smaller bounded community and sphere and if that progress really takes off when a third of the population embraces those beliefs, it seems reasonable that if we really want to reach our Nation we must start with the areas we are planted. I know there’s nothing new about that sentiment, but for me it confirms a suspicion that I’ve had for quite a while. When I would hear about the lostness of other communities, I wondered at what the real outcome of that knowledge is. I came to conclusion that presented with the numbers of millions, the individual is more able to procrastinate and avoid impacting others.

Perhaps as we are trying to accelerate the growth and acceptance of the Gospel, it seems that we need to set aside the avalanche of statistics that we can do nothing about and to focus on those we can. What percentage of people that we interact with regularly are outside Christ? When we start focusing that way, the only stat that should matter is the number “1”. That number is the person that you are directly interacting with. 1 soul that is precious to God that is on the brink of eternity. What if the whole of your evangelism of your life was effective for that one person? We cannot fathom the impact of that 1 life change.

These are just questions that I ask myself on reading Gladwell, and it is an encouragement that maybe Revival isn’t that far away.