Here’s a quote pulled right out of a good book that I’d recommend by Andy Crouch called Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling:
“Anthropologists speculate, in fact that we are hardwired for small groups–that human beings are simply designed to operate in a village, even if that village exists in the midst of a vast metropolis or on computer servers that host a million other villages simultaneously…
…every cultural innovation, no matter how far-reaching its consequences, is based on personal relationships and personal commitment. Culture making is hard. It simply doesn’t happen without the deep investment of absolutely and relatively small groups of people. In culture making, size matters — in reverse. Only a small group can sustain the attention, energy and perseverance to create something that genuinely moves the horizons of possibility…To create a new cultural good, a small group is essential. And yet the almost uncanny thing about culture making is that a small group is enough.”
— pages 242-243
In this closing section of his book, Crouch shares the genius behind the model that Jesus utilized of gathering the groups of 3, 12, and 120. I couldn’t help but think of the role that this pattern plays when it comes to the development of the church and its always-new, redeemed culture of a city-on-a-hill. Crouch makes some brilliant insights in the book, and if you’d like a copy, you just need to click on the picture of the globe in this post to order one.
Holy Minestrone 