{"id":5500,"date":"2026-06-11T07:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5500"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:17:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:17:44","slug":"the-law-of-the-vital-few","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/the-law-of-the-vital-few\/","title":{"rendered":"The Law of the Vital Few"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>

In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed something interesting.

As a rule, 80% of the peas that he harvested from his garden came from just 20% of the pea pods.

Pareto also happened to know that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only\u00a020% of the population. And a majority of businesses received 80% of their sales from only 20% of their clients.

Thus the world was introduced to the Pareto Principle, or the so-called 80-20 Rule.\u00a0

In so many words, “80% of the effects are produced by 20% of the causes.” This\u00a0appears to be true in a surprising number of contexts.

For instance, studies of pro sports teams have shown that one-fifth of the players (the so-called superstars) are responsible for four-fifths of a team’s victories.\u00a0\u00a0

According to the United Nations, 82.7% of the world’s wealth is controlled by approximately 20% of the world’s population.\u00a0\u00a0

When it comes to human productivity, the\u00a0Pareto Principle is sometimes\u00a0known as the Law of the Vital Few.\u00a0That\u2019s because 20% of the members of a particular group almost always accomplish 80% of the work.\u00a0The flip side, of course, is that the remaining four-fifths of a typical group assume responsibility for only one fifth of what needs to get done.

Anyone who has ever been part of a not-for-profit board, a Rotary Club, or a youth sports league\u00a0knows just how true that is.\u00a0\u00a0

Likewise, a mere\u00a020% of American citizens generate 80% of what happens in politics, even though 100% of us feel empowered to complain about the results.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

We can now confirm what we have long suspected:\u00a080% of the doughnuts at a typical church gathering are eaten by 20% of those present.\u00a0We\u00a0have the surveillance videos to prove it.\u00a0\u00a0

It’s also easy to confirm that\u00a020% of self-identified followers of Jesus accomplish about 80% of any church\u2019s overall mission work, and 80% of the resources that are required to support that mission spring from the generosity of just 20% of those in the Body of Christ.

The Pareto Principle, in short, is a valid snapshot of the way that life usually works.

That’s another way of saying that 80% of us feel comforted that somebody, somewhere, is going to get that important job done.\u00a0Somebody else is going to pay for that.<\/em>

But the 80-20 Rule is not genetically encoded. It is not predestined.\u00a0It is a sociological tendency<\/em> that describes typical group behavior.

And things don’t always have to be that way.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

Most of us can remember at least one time in our lives when it seemed that everybody pitched in.\u00a0Remember that\u00a0winter when Mom got sick, and the entire family had to work together just to keep the house organized and food on the table?\u00a0

It would seem that the horrors and deprivations of World War II would be among the worst memories for the citizens of London.\u00a0But countless Brits looked back on those dark days \u2013 especially the Blitz, when the city was bombed every night for weeks on end \u2013 as the greatest chapter of their lives.\u00a0That’s because of the camaraderie and collaboration that brought total strangers together in a common cause: to survive the Nazi assault on their very civilization.

Apart from a compelling concern\u00a0that brings people\u00a0together, human beings\u00a0almost always revert to the 80-20 Rule.\u00a0\u00a0

But we don’t have to wait for sickness or war to force our hands.\u00a0\u00a0

What if we “declared war” on poverty, injustice, spiritual ignorance, and hopelessness on our streets?\u00a0 What if we took seriously the mission that God has already given to us \u2013 to raise up ardent followers of the compassionate Way of Jesus, and release them for service in our\u00a0broken world?

We would quickly discover the most important metric of all:

100% of us have been called and equipped by God to serve others. And we can do that even today.<\/em>

Followers of Jesus can live out the Law of the Vital Many.

Vilfredo Pareto would\u00a0surely have been delighted to see such a transforming exception to his rule.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here In 1906, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed something interesting. As a rule, 80% of the peas that he harvested from his garden came from just 20% of the pea pods. Pareto also happened to know that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only\u00a020% of the population. And… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1092,341],"class_list":["post-5500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-body-of-christ","tag-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5502,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500\/revisions\/5502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}