Philosophy of Legos

Osbourne, Larry. Sticky Church. Zondervan, 2008 p. 80-81 (mixture of direct quote and paraphrase)

I think of people as being like Legos. We all have a limited number of connectors. Introverts have a few. Some extroverts have dozens. But either way, once they’re full, they’re full. And when that happens, we tend to be friendly but to not connect. It’s what happens when you move to a new town and are excited by everyone’s friendliness, only to be discouraged three months later that you haven’t connected with anyone. I’m an extrovert. I have lots of connectors. But due to my role and years in the community, I also have so many relationships that I don’t have any empty connectors left…In fact, sometimes when my friends aren’t looking, I’ll take one of them off so I can connect with someone else for a while. When Nancy and I meet someone new, we’re very friendly. Say you’ve just moved into our neighborhood. We might bring you some fresh-baked cookies; invite you over for coffee or a barbeque. But to be honest, we won’t connect on any sort of deeper lever. If we have some extra time, tickets to a ball game, or a chance to have some friends over, we’ll use the opportunity to reconnect with the people we’re supposed to be close to but haven’t seen in three weeks-or three months. 

The reality is, it’s not so much a church full of cliques as it is a church full of people who connectors are already full. Obviously this can be a huge problem when it comes to assimilating new people into a small group…But it can also be put to use by employing a bit of spiritual jujitsu.

New people, by definition, have lots of empty connectors. They usually share with other new people a very strong desire to get connected…so we’ve come up with new groups for new people. The people in them tend to bond quickly. We’re putting new people with open connectors with other new people with open connectors.

Contrast this with the common practice of dividing existing groups to make more openings. The unintended consequence is often a case of friendliness without connection. Those who come from the previously existing groups show up with an already overloaded set of connectors. While they might genuinely desire to reach out and build new relationships with those who are new to the group, their relational overload makes it unlikely that they will connect outside of the meeting. They don’t have the time or the energy. On the other hand, the new folks have lots of empty connectors. And while they are likely to appreciate the friendly atmosphere during the meeting, they’re usually looking for something more than a couple of hours of friendly banter at a Bible study.