8 to 15, The World Is Smaller Than You Think
By Tom Mercer
God has given each of us, on average, anywhere from eight to fifteen people whom He has supernaturally and strategically placed in our relational worlds. The Greeks used one word to describe this personal world— oikos, or “extended household.” This is the world God wants to use each of us to change, our individual world!
He started with a youth group of 4 kids, and through emphasis on reaching their oikos, it grew to over 300. After 29 years at High Desert Church the ministry has grown from 150 to over 14,000 regular participants (they prefer the term participants to members or attenders). However, this is not a book about another church growth program or strategy. Mercer describes it as a mindset, a way of seeing the Christian life and ministry in general. If you have ever read W. Oscar Thompson’s book Concentric Circles of Concern: Seven Stages for Making Disciples
1. The church exists for the lost, not for believers. Mercer lists three things that churches in America commonly focus on or want to be known for, and then shows that all three of them can and will be done much better in heaven than in this life. Those three things are Worship, Fellowship, and Bible Teaching. He acknowledges the importance of all three, but makes a strong point of the fact that our efforts in those areas on earth are a weak attempt to do what we will enjoy to perfection in heaven. Did God save us and leave us here to do something so poorly here that we will eventually do perfectly in heaven? There are only two things we can do here that we will not be able to do in heaven. Those two things are sin and share the gospel with the lost. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. When he called his disciples he did so to make them fishers of men. Before he left he gave the great commission, which was to make disciples.
The main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing . That’s a constant theme at HDC, but it takes work to keep number one number one, as other important aspects of the Christian life keep trying to push their way up the list. But even mission critical elements do not deserve main thing status. Rick Warren challenged us to keep our focus in this life on what we won’t be able to do in the next—“ God’s kept us here on Earth to fulfill a purpose we cannot do better in Heaven.” 1
2. As soon as we say that the church exists for the lost, people start getting nervous. “Oh, oh, here comes the guilt trip about evangelism and handing out tracts and going door to door to share the gospel!” But 8 to 15 is anything but that. Not only is the concept of Oikos Biblical, it dramatically simplifies the task and brings it into the realm of doable. He tells a story of a pastor friend who he was promoting the idea of Oikos with, but who was unimpressed with it.
A few years ago I began meeting regularly with a group of pastors in San Diego. As you can imagine, from the very beginning of the group’s relationship, the oikos principle bled into every one of our conversations. But one of the guys would look at me sideways every time oikos came up. He just couldn’t believe effective ministry could evolve out of such a simple premise. I talked him into attending a workshop anyway, hoping he would come to better understand the principle— at least then he would know what he was rejecting! After the first part of the presentation was over he walked up to me and said, “I’m sold,” as if there was never a doubt! I actually thought he was teasing me— up to that point he had been so resistant it was hard to believe he had done a “180” so quickly. I asked, “What happened?” “Tom,” he said, “it was the weirdest thing . About halfway through your talk, my wife leaned over to me and whispered, ‘I can do this!’ When she said that, the light went on!”
3. Most people come to Christ as a result of relationships. Mercer says that 95% of people come to Christ through their “Oikos”. That number is a little higher than I’ve read elsewhere, but it is certainly true that somewhere between 80 and 95% of people who come to Christ do so as a result of a relationship with a friend, family member or coworker. People certainly do come to Christ as a result of a stranger handing them a tract, a Christian radio or TV program, an evangelistic crusade or meeting, or some kind of cold calling. But those methods are not very effective. We have reliable statistics to prove that. Mercer says that if you could demonstrate a 95% correlation with the success a business methodology or a medical treatment or an investing strategy, everyone would jump on it in a heartbeat, but for some reason the church continues to pursue other methods of reaching the lost.
4. The focus on Oikos enables us to focus our prayers and efforts where that focus will produce the most fruit. Mercer says that “if you feel that your job is to witness to everybody, then you probably aren’t witnessing to anybody“. In other words, focus is necessary. He quotes from well know business writers on the importance of focus for success in business.
The difference between Christians who are coherent and Christians who are incoherent is this element of laser sharp focus. Everything and everyone cannot be a priority to us— or nothing and no one will be. Every caring believer wants the world to know Jesus, but if we try to evangelize everyone we will end up evangelizing no one.
I’ve always believed that most churches are like most Christians, they try to do too much. And, in doing so, the most important thing gets lost in the shuffle. Jim Collins is one of our generation’s most respected business analysts. He put it as succinctly as anyone could—“ Good is the enemy of great.”
5. Mercer gives some indications of how he incorporates OIKOS into what they do at HDC. Every participant at HDC carries with them a card with spaces to write the names of their Oikos members that they are praying for.
Every single week , in virtually every service, I’ll say something to this effect, “God has brought eight to fifteen people into your sphere of influence. He has surrounded you with this group of individuals, strategically and supernaturally, because He wants to reach out to them and He wants to use you in the process .” And then I’ll continue, “And the Greeks called this group an…,” and thousands of people will say in unison, “oikos,” because they are never allowed to forget what the endgame looks like.
He emphasizes that OIKOS is not a program. It is the main thing they do, and everything they do is evaluated in the light of OIKOS. Speaking of their decision to build their ministry around this concept, he says:
What we didn’t know at the time was all the rethinking we would have to do about the various elements of “doing church” that up to then we had taken for granted. We had to peel away the layers of the traditional “feed me and give me” mentality and craft a whole new set of “make me and send me” priorities and values , based on an oikocentric way of seeing the world. Rome wasn’t built in a day either, but everything changed when we put on that new set of lenses and began to view the world through the eyes of Jesus.
6. Mercer encourages participants to invite members of their Oikos to church, and every week he concludes the sermon with a simple gospel presentation that he calls the ABC’s of the gospel. I will write about his presentation in a future post. Because he does it the same way every time, 52 times a year, the participants of HDC learn a simple way to share the gospel. Eventually, without taking any classes or memorizing any outline, every regular attender of HDC will be able to share the gospel with a member of their Oikos.
Strengths:
1. Mercer is focused on the most important thing. I’m so tired of churches with the best expository preaching that leaves believers with notebooks full of notes but never sharing the gospel with the lost. I’m so tired of churches that emphasize fellowship and everyone loves it and yet they have no relationships with lost people and never share the gospel. I’m so tired of believers going to great Christian concerts and choosing the church with the must uplifting worship experience but fail to reach lost people. Mercer gets this right. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. We don’t make up our own mission statement for each church. He has already given us one.
2. It is sometimes easier to share the gospel with a stranger than with your own family and friends. I’ve known believers who were great at approaching strangers with the gospel, but couldn’t talk to their own coworkers about Christ. The Oikos emphasis is the right emphasis. Not only do we see numerous examples of it in action in scripture, but statistics prove it’s effectiveness. People come to Christ primarily through personal relationships with believers. This book is all about focusing an intentionality of prayer and outreach on those people.
3. There is a strong emphasis in this book on focus. There is plenty of evidence that every successful endeavor is a result of a laser like focus on what really matters. Most churches easily get side tracked into multiple “good” programs without any discernable clear focus on what the end goal is. Mercer gets this. His ministry has focused on one simple concept, that every believer has 8 to 15 people in their lives who only they can reach.
Weaknesses:
1. There is a strong emphasis here on inviting people to church. I have watched a 4 part sermon series they gave at the church on Oikos, and each one was preceded by a video testimony of people who came to Christ through their Oikos. Most were invited to church and came to Christ through the weekend service. It is a wonderful thing when anyone comes to Christ, but how much better would it be if individual disciples of Jesus actually led members of their family to Christ? I watched another video of Mercer giving a seminar at another church on the subject of Oikos. He said,
“I’ll ask people how they came to Christ, and they’ll tell me, ‘you led me to Christ’. But I don’t even know them. What they mean is, when I explained the gospel at the end of a message they put their faith in Christ. I always tell them to think back on who invited them to Church, because that is the real person who led them to Christ.”
Clearly the first answer from the new disciple indicates who they really thought led them to Christ. There is a saying, “What you win them by, is what you win them to.” In other words, if someone gets saved by going to a church, they are going to think that they must invite their friends to church to get saved. I fear that this approach does not empower the saints to lead friends and family to Christ themselves. But even more, I fear that they will miss out on the joy of actually leading their friend or family member across that threshold of faith into eternal life. Simply bringing people to church where they can hear the gospel from someone else leaves the average believer out of the most important and most exciting part of the new birth.
2. As a result of the emphasis on a large weekend service, the success of HDC has resulted in building campaigns and multiple campuses. This means a significant amount of time and financial resources are going into buildings. HDC is still a mega church, and I’m convinced that model is not the Biblical model or the most effective model.
I can recommend this book and give it a 4.5 out of 5.0 rating. It will be most useful to pastors and ministry leaders, but any layman can benefit from this approach to reaching the lost for Christ.