support, sympathy and band

I once posed the question to the then British Church Growth Assocition whether there had been any work done on my observation that there seemed to be a significant growth barrier at around 40-50 individuals in a church. I've since lost touch with them [and they have become 'Healthy Churches' or somesuch title] and there was at that time no data on the matter. I recalled having read somewhere that in working class culture there seemed to be a natural affinity for extended family sized organisations of around 40 but that was as far as it got. Then a week or two back I read this: "Each social group follows a distinct hierarchy. In our social, religious and cultural circles, the three to five people we typically call in times of distress make up the “support clique.” These include friends, family and clergy. Nine to 15 people generally form a “sympathy group” with whom we have some special tie but don’t closely interact. The sympathy group could be a larger circle of friends or the people you talk with every Friday at the mosque. These groups are part of a “band” of 30 to 50 individuals."
It's from some international scientific research on human sociality. Perhaps it provides a way in to explaining why so many English churches are 50 persons or less and could concentrate our minds on the factors which might help us to do mission involving church planting or new congregations and the like. Of course it also highlights the importance of the handful-sized group [cf Jesus, Peter, James, John] as well as the discipleship group [cf the 12 apostles]. Perhaps we should actually plan round these sizes?

Though the one big question I have about all of this is how it works out in a multiply-networked society. How likely is it that you, I or Ms Gatepost might have two or three 'support -clique' sized groups in different settings [say work, home and church] and several sympathy groups [ditto]. Or is this a matter of how much in total the socialble parts of our brins can cope with? Or is it modular related to different context so work and church and home can be different modules each with the potential to fill up the spaces in support, sympathy and band? 'Cos if we can't modularise this then it is quite difficult to know how to steer people in relation to church when it is competing for headspace with the other stuff ...

Apart from anything else we should also note this: "Religious rituals impact social bonding, Seeber said. 'That has been hypothesized, tested and shown to have support over and over again by sociologists of religion.' "

Interesting eh?

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