It is with deep concern for the bretheren at megachurches that I pen this analysis of eye contact during ‘the Grace’.
‘The Grace’ is that little blessing that we state to each other which reads ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore, amen’. It takes approx 12 seconds to complete.
Let’s look at some examples:
When a meeting of just two people say ‘The Grace’ then chances are that they will make eye contact for most of the duration of ‘The Grace’. However, we must always consider that 10% of any meeting population will have their eyes closed in the mistaken thought that they are praying to God and not speaking to each other. Therefore there is a 20% chance that in a meeting of two people eye contact will not be made – and 80% likelihood that contact will be made.
A meeting of three people: Well, it is possible that as person A looks to person B, person B is looking at person C and person C is looking at person A. Then there is always the chance that they may move their gaze into another order where there is still no eye contact! Then bear in mind the shut eyes fallacy. However, there is a very good chance that, bearing in mind that participants might switch gaze every 2 seconds or less that, on average, a participant will make eye contact,during ‘The Grace’, with one person or more (90% estimated) or exactly two people (70% estimated).
Moving on to larger numbers and we begin to find more dramatic problems. A meeting of 1000 people: In the 12 seconds it takes to say ‘The Grace’ you will on average switch gaze every second. Your gaze will dwell on people who are obviously looking in the completely opposite direction for perhaps 0.1s and you will not look at people with their backs to you, but bear in mind that perhaps 50% of the people in front will turn around to look behind them (the other 50% either having neck problems, being too enamoured with the people in front of them, or just being plain lazy). So you can look at 12 people in 12 seconds, but the chance that the person you are looking at is also looking at you is 1 in 1000? Well, you have better odds if you are taller, maybe you are well groomed? Perhaps you are their close friend? So the odds improve to 1 in 500. Let’s see, so the odds of you making eye contact with someone during the grace is 12 in 500 or 2.4%?
Hmmm, perhaps it’s time for experimental results. If you are a member at a megachurch then contact me, Mark Porthouse at thegraceexperimentalanalysis@prayertriplets-r-thenewchurchmodel.com
I’ll be intently awaiting your results!