The Obvious

Recently while teaching a Rescue Class at New Life Church of God in Christ on Oakwood in Toledo's urban core, I drew a box on the flip chart and inside the box wrote the letters BS and said to the class, "Everyone is full of this".

Belief System!

Our Belief System is created by three predominant components; History, Experience and Environment. Our Belief System is our paradigm - it's not a 'seeing is believing' thing as much as it's a 'seeing what I believe' thing. Our Belief System determines how we see life. For example if you believe all homeless men are alcoholics and lazy that's the way you see homeless men. However, when you come to Cherry Street Mission Ministries and have a tour of one or all of our ministry sites and interact with actual homeless men you realize that not all homeless men are drunk and lazy.

What happened? Your Belief System was challenged and you begin to experience a Paradigm Shift in the way you think.

It is in fact our Belief System that creates our Culture. For example, if you grew up in a home where both parents were alcoholics, you grew up in a culture of drinking. That Culture of drinking in your home was there because a Belief System not only created it, but supported it. If you grew up and became an alcoholic, it is largely because the presence of a hidden Belief System created a very visible Culture of drinking.

It is our Culture that becomes the obvious of our lives. Our Culture always creates the 'obvious'. Unfortunately for many who desire to effect change in the lives of those we care for, it is only the 'Obvious' that we end up caring about. If someone is an alcoholic we want them to stop drinking [the obvious]. We then become frustrated because they remain unresponsive to our logic and ultimately we begin to give up on them all together.

If you want to effect change in the culture of a person or a community, you must first deal with their Belief System. You must care more for the person [Belief System], than what the person is doing [Culture].

What do you think?

Dan Rogers