The day before I left for Haiti, I hastily posted my “From Strangers to Missionaries” article. Had I known it would be read so much, I would have taken longer than 30 minutes to write it! Oh well. Since then, I have received a lot of feedback from folks—some asking questions and others wondering what it would look like in their context. This post is dedicated to think through practical application and fleshing it out in practice.
1. Leverage the Limits of Our Relationships.
Have you ever heard of Dunbar’s Number? According to Robin Dunbar, there is a maximum number of relationships a person can have due to cognitive limitations and social group sizes. According to Dunbar, the average person can have a maximum of 150 meaningful relationships with a broader range of 100-230 relationships. The larger the number, the more restrictive or superficial the relationships become.
I would venture to say that most of us don’t think very strategically about the limitations of our relationships. Of course, we have our immediate relations to our family and extended family. Beyond that, we have our friends and church family. Once you factor in the “givens,” the number of available meaningful relationships is relatively small. That means we need to be careful in how we invest our lives cognitively and missionally for the sake of the gospel.
Knowing these limitations, why not come up with a plan on how to leverage your relational margin for the sake of gospel advance? How many relationships could be acquaintances? Neighbors? Friends? You can’t change the world with 500 relationships, but you can change a neighborhood with 10.
I fear the problem with most of us is that we have failed to consider these limitations and leverage our relational margin at all for gospel causes. To correct that, we need to begin with examining our relationships and make efforts to demonstrate personal hospitality, receptivity and availability for God to use us in the lives of others.
2. Assess Busyness and Make Missional Margin.
A key factor with many of us is that our lives are too complex and too busy. We simply don’t have time. Does life have to look like a rat race or exhausting treadmill? I don’t think so. Five years ago, I wrote about being too busy not to evangelize, and I followed up with some ways to create missional margin in your life.
Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success is just showing up. We need to be present, and present with a purpose to live with others, love them and lean into the kingdom under the leadership of the Spirit to magnify Jesus.
