Dunbar’s Number and the Mission of the Laity

Every weekend at my parish, inevitably someone will walk out of Mass and say to me, “Father, thank you for your prayers for my grandson’s friend’s father, the tests came back negative.” And my poor addled brain will struggle to recall the interaction I had with this person three months ago, usually without success.

For years I wondered if I was failing as a priest because I could not keep track of the many spiritual needs of my people. We are called to accompany people, to “smell like the sheep,” but my attention seemed so limited compared to the vast tidal wave of needs that crested upon me every week.

Then I discovered Dunbar’s Number.

Sociologist Robin Dunbar proposed, based upon studies of primates and human behavior, that a human being has a limit to the number of significant relationships in their lives. Surveys of Roman cohorts, medieval villages, and Mennonite settlements all reveal that an optimal group size is between 150-200 people that anyone can consider a meaningful community. Within that group, there are the intimate support group (around 5 people), sympathy group that we go to in times of crisis (about 15 people), our casual friends whom we like hanging out with (50 people) and about 150 people with whom we can have meaningful relationships. Of course, our social circles are often larger than that—we can have perhaps 500 acquaintances, and can associate faces and names of about 1500 people. These are rough estimates, and some people have a larger or smaller number of people with whom they can have meaningful relationships, but this strikes me as a good average.

But what is a parish priest to do? I have 2,000 parishioners on the books, about 800 of whom walk through the doors of my church or school on any given weekend. How am I supposed to shepherd this vast number of individuals, each of whom have their own stories, their own spiritual journey, their own trials that they need to be accompanied through?

I have always struggled with the image of the Good Shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep while leaving the ninety-nine—perhaps because in my experience the ratio is significantly reversed. It’s more like twenty sheep stay in the sheepfold, while eighty have wandered away. What is a shepherd to do when the majority have strayed far and wide? Should he leave the twenty and hope they stay put? And where can I begin looking for the strays, who have scattered to the four winds?

If Dunbar’s Number is true, then it is not physically or psychologically possible to keep so many sheep in a pastor’s mind and heart all at once. Rather, it underscores to me an oft-misunderstood but essential role of the laity: the role of shepherding souls.

Our current model of ministry, at least in my region of the United States (the Northeast) is very clergy-centric. People expect their priests to not only provide the Sacraments, but be available for all sorts of pastoral situations—visits to the hospital, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, sacramental preparation, Knights of Columbus meetings. I’m often even the gardener in my parish! It is an untenable situation, however, due to the vast needs of the people and the dwindling number of priests. Considering the limitations placed upon the number of people a priest can personally shepherd, it is time for the laity to have a change of perspective—and to take up a mission in the name of Christ.

First, the change of perspective. It can be tempting to think that something is a church activity only if a priest’s presence validates it. Absent a clergy member, some think that the priest is ignoring them or that it can’t be a valid Catholic experience. So it is critical for parishioners to understand that the Church is not only the clergy, but that “where two or three are gathered in My Name, I am there in the midst of them” (cf. Mt 18:20). We can have many authentically Catholic meetings, Bible studies, or even pastoral visits without a priest’s presence needing to validate them.

There is an underlying cri du coeur of the people of God—they are longing for a spiritual father to walk with them. In an often-fatherless society, priests can fill that primal need. But a spiritual father does not need to wear a collar—God can, and will, raise up spiritual fathers and mothers who can walk with us to Heaven. Our parishioners need to look, not only to priests, but to other Christians to provide pastoral care, and not consider it second-rate to be led by a holy, wise, learned fellow Christian.

Which brings us to the mission—the laity are called to act in the name of Christ. Priests are in persona Christi, but as the saints remind us, every Christian is meant to be another Christ—and to be an ambassador of the Catholic Church, as well. It isn’t just priests who are “the Church”, but every baptized and confirmed Christian who takes on the mission of the Church to lead souls to Jesus. Every lay Catholic should be on the lookout for souls to shepherd—whether it be the seeker around the water cooler, the neighborhood soccer mom whose marriage is falling apart, the elderly lady forgotten in the nursing home, the teenage kid who wonders if they can be accepted…and even the fellow parishioner who wants to grow in holiness and needs a brother or sister in Christ to walk that journey with them.

I often hear people—both in-person and online commentators—say that “the Church should X.” The Church should have an outreach to people struggling with infertility. The Church should be more sensitive to single young adults. The Church should be more present at local civic events. The Church should have a ministry to widows. These usually mean, “Some professional Church-person (aka, Father) needs to start this, and be present at every meeting.” People must begin to recognize that “the Church” is every layperson in the pew, who may be given the charism to start these ministries…or even to just “do” the ministry without an official institutional imprimatur. When a woman sits down for coffee with a friend who is struggling with infertility, that IS the Church having an outreach. When a grandson brings flowers to his recently widowed grandmother, that IS the Church’s ministry. It doesn’t have to have a title and a page on the parish website with a president and secretary to be the Church’s presence, if we are truly the Body of Christ.

Yes, we pray for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life—and there are many positive signs in that direction, as the Archdiocese of Baltimore has a record number of seminarians and traditional religious orders are bursting at the seams. Thanks be to God for that! But even Jesus acknowledges that the harvest will always be more plentiful than the laborers. So, my dear lay parishioners—take up your appointed mission and begin to shepherd those souls that God is putting in your life. It is no longer enough to raise your family quietly, and pray/pay/obey. No, we must be an outward-facing Church—a church that is comprised not only of priests and nuns, but of the vast army of the baptized, seeking lost souls and shepherding them into the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd.