A few years ago I read a great book by Nicholas Christokis and James Fowler called Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks. There are a few points about social networks that I’ve been thinking about as relates to our social networks like the church, Facebook, and the blogs we frequent. Given the findings of the book, the most important aspect of our church life is our local ward. At work we used to say that to an employee, their direct leader was the whole company, for good or bad. The same can be said of our local wards: to members, the experiences in those local wards are the whole church experience (or nearly so). Having a ward you like and where you feel accepted is therefore pretty important.
