Have you ever heard the phrase, critical mass? The first time I ever heard that phrase used was in a church staff meeting. The senior pastor looked down at me (this lowly youth director) and pontificated on the how’s and why’s of developing critical mass in order to grow (of course, numerically rather than spiritually) the youth group. Now, I realize this sounds bitter on my part, but it was an absurd conversation then as it would be today for most youth directors.
So, what is critical mass, or better yet, what did that senior pastor really have in mind during that staff meeting? Well, in his defense, he was really trying to communicate that “bigger is better.” He proposed a theory of critical mass that suggested if more people participated in a group; they would (by word of mouth and the nature of group dynamics) bring their friends until a base or core group formed. Now, I had been privy to the “bait and switch” tactics in youth ministry—get the good-looking football player and cheerleader in your youth group to make it “cool” and watch how many more youth would come just to be considered popular or, at least, known by them. I mean, there’s really “nothing new under the sun” in that respect—remember Charles Wesley’s adaptations of drinking songs into hymns back in his day. But at that time, as a youth director, I was much more attracted to the potential quality of youth spirituality than the quantity of how many youth came to youth group on a given Sunday—but, of course, to survive as a staff person in churches you have to do both…something I didn’t learn until later on in the ministry.
It wasn’t until recently that I happened to come across an article on statistical research, which discussed quality research in relationship to critical mass. Please note that I’m not a stats or math person, but I did find the article fascinating—something that gave some credence to my earlier naïveté.
The journal article based its research on the following critical mass premise:
The old notion of critical mass was of some sort of threshold group or department size, below which research quality tends to be poor and above which research standards start to improve. The idea has been extended to, and perhaps beyond, its logical conclusion: that ‘the bigger the group, the better’, and that ‘benefit continues to accrue through increasing scale’ (Kenna & Berche, 2012, p. 22).
What Kenna & Berche soon realized, by way of hybrid sociophysics models and mathematical ones (I won’t bore you with those), that a critical mass number did emerge, but having more researchers above the critical mass number did little, if anything, for the quality of research:
Therefore, statistics and operational research groups should strive to achieve a size of at least N/2 ≈ 9 members, and should be happy if they have over N c ≈ 17 staff. But beyond that, it does not much matter how many staff the group has—more staff beyond the critical number will tend only to increase the quantity of research, but not its quality (2012, p. 25)
How many of our church youth groups today reflect about 10% of the church’s worshipping community? Well, let’s just say, “a lot!” The size of most of those groups, realistically, run anywhere from single digits to low double-digit numbers. And even in those larger groups, subgroups of youth (we like to call them cliques) emerge. This is a perfect example of one of those sociophysics models based on the Dunbar number—highlighting that whenever a group of people exceeds a certain size, it will inevitably fragment into smaller, subgroupings.
So, what is that critical mass number for youth groups? Well, I don’t think the senior pastor I mentioned earlier would care for my analysis, but I’ll give it nonetheless…well, actually, I’ll let Jesus provide the answer: “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20). At least, that’s the number I’m sticking to when it comes to “quality” ministry. I mean, wouldn't a confirmation group of two to three youth discussing God's grace, charity, and love be just as important, if not more, to kingdom building work as a triple digit youth group heading to the Rocky Mountains for a ski retreat? Now, I'm not knocking skiing...I mean, who doesn't like to ski?! But, I think you get my point.
Lastly, I would be amiss if I didn’t mention that in Kenna & Berche’s research, they did come to the conclusion that “bigger is indeed better”, with a caveat—communication of the members has to happen in order for the research to be quality research. And I would make the case, communication happens best in smaller, intimate groups.
So…is bigger really better? You be the judge...until then, God bless.
Reference: Kenna & Berche, Statistics of Statisticians: Critical Mass for Research Groups in Significance: Statistics Making Sense (December 2012, volume 9, issue 6, pp. 22-25).
