(I pulled this post and the next subsequent posts off Eric Swanson’s blog who took it from Marc van der Woude’s blog http://marcsmessages.typepad.com)
Multiplication: Achieving much without the many
The Tipping Point.
The key to producing movement lies with the principle of multiplication. It is astonishing what can be produced from a very small initial base once multiplication is embedded in a movement. It is an observable reality that the world is constantly changed by committed minorities and not by apathetic majorities. The process by which small groups of people become mainstream influencers is well described in a book that describes the formation of secular movements, called The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell.
The title of the book has begun to enter the vocabulary of politicians and social campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic. Although using very different words, the author describes the operation of key influencers that in Christian terms would be thought of as apostles and evangelists — those who cast the vision, build networks and offer convincing advocacy. At a certain point, a new idea, ideology or even product reaches a tipping point such that it becomes the new orthodoxy. The many enter the scene at a fairly late stage in the process. It is the few that lay the groundwork to allow the many to enter later. The process of multiplication or the production of a tipping point has actually been given a mathematical formulation which Gladwell refers to in his book. He offers an astonishing illustration in relation to the developments of movements by sighting a flu epidemic:
Tipping Points are moments of great sensitivity. Changes made right at the Tipping Point can have enormous consequences. Our Canadian flu became an epidemic when the number of New Yorkers running into a flu carrier jumped from 50 to 55 a day. But had that same small change happened in the opposite direction, if the number had dropped from 50 to 45, that change would have pushed the number of flu victims down to 478 within a week. And within a few weeks more at that rate, the Canadian flu would have vanished from Manhattan entirely.(1)
Transportable Movements.
Those kinds of statistics indicate precisely why movements need to become transportable in order to achieve significance. Multiple contacts are vital elements in producing tipping points. The church planting teams that operate in the Ukraine are instructed to make 350 contacts each. They recognise that in terms of impact, large numbers of people must be contacted to produce initial momentum. It is for precisely that reason that church planting as an activity often becomes the point of leverage for the development of movement.
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