PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

March 23, 2022

THE TIPPING POINT

                The service club to which I belong along and most other service clubs are concerned about membership development.  There is a special emphasis to get younger members.  The church to which I belong as well as most of the churches in the community is interested in receiving new members.  A phrase that I hear often is we need more “young people.”  They are the future of the church.

One has only to make their way through the weekend supplements in the newspaper to realize that businesses are looking for customers to spend more money at their establishments.  One can not escape these overtures even on the web.  I get very frustrated when I am trying to find something and an advertisement pops up.

Would it not be great if there was a magic formula that clubs, organizations and businesses could apply to increase their membership, customers and sales?  Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point (Little, Brown and Company, 2000) gives some clues as to what this magic formula might look like.  Because of limited space it would be impossible to fully detail all that Gladwell has to say.  Never-the-less I would like to give a general overview of his position that might provide fodder for churches, organizations, and clubs as they are seeking to increase their membership.

The following definition of the tipping point is given on the back cover of the 2002 paperback edition of the book.  “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.”  “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” (Tipping Point, p. 7)  Critical to this process is word-of-mouth.  It would be interesting to see how Gladwell would have handled Facebook if it was available in 2000.

Gladwell identifies three groups of people who are responsible for the starting of word-of-mouth epidemics: Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.      Connectors are persons with special gifts for bringing people together.  They have a broad range of contacts from a variety of backgrounds.  Mavens are persons who have access to critical information and the social skills to use it.  They help to craft a bare bones message that will accomplish the task at hand.  Salesmen are persons who are able to persuade others who are unconvinced.

Using Gladwell’s categories a church needs to identify the connectors, the mavens, and salespersons that might be helpful to promote an existing program or ministry or start a new one.  Who are the connectors to the target group we want to meet?  Who has information about the target group that will help to craft the message?  Who are the persons we need to convince people of the importance of what we are trying to do?

It is interesting to apply Gladwell’s principles to the spread of the early church throughout the known Roman world and to identify the connectors, the mavens, and the salespersons in the movement.  They spread the heart of Christ’s message by word-of-mouth and were able to connect with the common person.  In his book the closest Gladwell comes to such an analysis is his description of John Wesley and his movement.