Can You Relate?

Last Sunday in our "Pathways of Discipleship" study we discussed the importance of our presence in worship and smaller groupings as we strive to be progressively formed as followers of Christ. As John Wesley's movement spread and the crowds grew larger and larger Wesley began to notice that those who attended only the larger Society meetings failed to grow spiritually like those who participated in the smaller Class and Band groupings he formed.

There is a reason for this - we all need accountability and encouragement and we all need to live life a little deeper with a few people or else we remain nameless, faceless individuals floating through life with no sense of grounding or belonging. Who I am is defined, in part, by who I am in relationship with. The fewer people I relate to, or know, the less "me" I really am. Restated, we form each other by the web of relationships we are a part of. Connecting with people provides a sense of unity and common purpose that defines us in ways neuroscience has yet to fully explain.

Obviously we can't know everyone though. There is a limit to how many people we can relate to. In class I mentioned that while training to be a church planter I was told the number of people that one person (the pastor) can supposedly keep up with is 167, which is why churches typically stall at this number unless the church puts other networks in place. I failed to mention the science behind the number I gave however.

It turns out I was generous with my number. According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, humans can only comfortably maintain about 150 social relationships.While humans have the ability to facially recognize about 1,500 people, the most a person can really keep up with is 150 (147.8 to be exact).

When Dunbar and his associates went searching they discovered groups of 150 all over the place; among them, the size of a typical fighting unit of Roman soldiers, a neolithic village, and the average Englishman's Christmas Card list. The limiting factor is our brain size - apparently 150 is the number at which our brains just run out of room to keep up with the details of other people's lives. Dunbar has researched this notion so thoroughly that the number 150 is now referred to as "Dunbar's Number" in the scientific community.

How many "friends" do you have on Facebook? How many do you follow on Twitter? What is the average worship attendance of the church you attend? How many people do you work with or know through your job? It turns out there is science behind all these numbers, and their importance should not be taken lightly. We need each other in ways we are only just now beginning to fully understand.