Beer Money

Part of what makes church work and government not work is sheer size. One key to a successful community of any kind is interdependence. Let me explain.

Imagine you've dropped in on guy's night with the men from my small group. There are five of us — six counting you. We're at Buffalo Wild Wings (yes, you can talk about Jesus at a sports bar), and we all decide to chip in to buy a pitcher of beer (yes, you can talk about Jesus while drinking beer). Now imagine one of the guys can't contribute. He forgot his wallet or his budget is tight this month. What would we do? We would cover him, of course. We would buy his beer. And what would he do? He would thank us. He likely wouldn't forget his wallet again soon. And if he continued to do so, the rest of us might just tell him that we're getting tired of paying his way. Or if he was genuinely disadvantaged, we would happily continue to pay for him or possibly stop having guys night at some place where he's expected to buy stuff.

Around that table at Buffalo Wild Wings, there would be generosity, gratitude and accountability.

You can be interdependent with six guys, but the larger the group gets, the harder it becomes. If our group turns into 30 guys, some of the group won't even know who didn't pay. If our group is 300, we'll have to start a spreadsheet. At 3,000, we're not really even part of the same party; we're dividing up into lots of little groups within the big group. In a group of 3,000, you have to be very intentional about accountability, generosity and gratitude. It's easy to lose sight of who you should be grateful to, and who your generosity is helping.

Now imagine if our little guys group swells to 300 million people. Now when everyone pitches in, it's not generosity; it's taxation. And when someone gets a free ride, there isn't gratitude; there is shame and entitlement. And when someone misappropriates the beer money to spend it on favors for a friend, it goes unnoticed.

Now before you get mad and start waving election banners, let me point out that this is not a political stance. The same dynamic happens regardless of how conservative or liberal are the guys around the table. It's just human nature. There is a universal inverse relationship between the level of interdependence in a group and the number of its members.

Interdependence, and therefore authentic community, is only possible in small groups.

Pass the beer nuts.