FaithVenture

Six Degrees of Separation

Before I leave Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of the “Law of the Few,” I want to touch on one of Gladwell’s initial points related to this idea that it only takes a few people in connection with each other that can start an epidemic.  It is the idea of what has been called “Six Degrees of Separation,” and it deals with idea that we are more connected to people than we really think we are.

Back in the late 1960’s psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment related to the idea of the “small world problem.”  You know, the idea that as you talk with a person at church, at work, at the gym, at school, in your neighborhood, in the midst of your conversation, you come to find out that you and that person have some or something in common, causing you or them to say, “wow, it sure is a small world.”  Milgram wanted to see if that was really the case and what causes it.

Milgram randomly picked 160 people in Omaha, Nebraska and mailed each of them a packet.  In the packet was the name and address of a stockbroker in Boston, Massachusetts.  Without mailing it directly to the stockbroker, each person was told to write his or her name on the packet, and send it to a friend or acquaintance they thought would be able to get the packet closer to Boston.   Then the second person was to send it to third person they thought would get it closer to the stock broker until it could finally be hand-delivered to the stockbroker.

You want to know what was amazing about this experiment?  Not that the packet got to the stock broker in five to six steps/persons on average.  The amazing thing is that “twenty-four of the packets reached the stockbroker at his home in Sharon, MA, and of these, sixteen were given to him by the same person.  The balance of the letters came to the stockbroker at his office, and of those, the majority came through two other men. . . in all, half of the responses that came back to the stockbroker were delivered to him by these same three people.”  (p. 36)

Who would of thought that the majority of 160 letters sent out to a random, apparently unconnected set of people in Omaha, Nebraska, would arrive at the same person by three unconnected people?  Who also would have thought that these same 160 people would have thought of turning to the same people to help them with a project that had confronted them? As unbelievable as it seems, that’s what happened, causing Milgram to state that each of us is often connected to each other through friends or acquaintances by only a few steps.

When it comes to the ministry of the church, evangelism, and creating an epidemic with God’s contagious love, you are more closely connected to your neighbors, co-workers, and the people at the gym than you think – even if you live in a metro-plex like Tacoma.  As you begin to talk to people about spiritual things, you will find out that they know people who went to a church or a Nazarene church like yours, if not yours.  You’ll get to know how they have been touched by the church, as well as hurt by Christians.   You’ll also get to know about the hurts they’ve experienced in life – physically, financially, and relationally.

Through these life and relational connection points, even if you haven’t  experienced what they have gone through, you will be able to connect with them because you know someone who has gone through what they are going through.   Because of these connection points, you will find you have more in common with people than you realize, giving you the opportunity to share about God’s contagious love with them.

Not only that, but as you connect with people outside of the church, you will be setting yourself up to be their connection to God.  Now that they know you, they will have someone to turn to for prayer, support, and comfort, if we will only make ourselves available to them. For you see, we are not as separated and isolated from the next person as we fear.

So don’t be afraid to connect with those you don’t know; don’t be afraid to ‘walk across the room,” as one pastor has labeled it; because you probably have more in common with that person than you realize if you’ll only take the step of faith and go build a bridge with them.

Pastor Tony J.