Why 2% is not enough.
God can do anything through the power of his Holy Spirit, and he often uses very small beginnings. But based on research, a group that is 2% of a population is likely too small to reach everyone else on its own. We think a committed minority of around 10% is a better goal. Run the model and see why.
The research in brief
The research comes from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which modeled how ideas spread through populations. They found a tipping point at about 9.8%: once a committed minority reaches roughly 10%, its view spreads through the rest of the population quickly. Below that, it can take "effectively eternity."
The model is simple. Most people hold the majority view. A committed minority never changes its mind. Everyone else keeps talking with the people around them, and each conversation can settle someone on a view, or leave them weighing both.
Run it yourself
This is a village of 1,000 people, and it runs the research model person by person. Each person has about 14 friends, most of them nearby and some elsewhere in the village, and about once a week, each person has one conversation with one of them. Pick how many committed disciples live in the village, then run it for up to 2 years. At 2%, watch the message stall. At 10%, watch it spread organically through every family network and social circle.
Each dot is one person. The circle around a committed disciple shows their nearby friends. The village has tipped when nearly everyone is talking about it.
What to notice
In 100 runs of this village at every share, nothing tipped at 7% or below within 10 years. At 8%, about 1 village in 4 tipped. At 9% and above, every one did, and from 10% it took about a year. The change happens right around 10%, just as the research found.
A note on the research
The study describes how any firmly held idea spreads through conversation. It was not built to study faith, and the gospel spreads by the work of the Spirit, not by a formula. We use it because it offers a research-based answer to how large a committed minority must be to reach a whole population. Treating a round of conversations as one week, and the village's network of friends, are our own design, not findings of the study.
Sources
- J. Xie, S. Sreenivasan, G. Korniss, W. Zhang, C. Lim and B. K. Szymanski, "Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities," Physical Review E 84, 011130 (2011). Read the paper
- "Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas," Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute news release (news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2902).