Paradigm shift

We are in the middle of a preaching series on “Changing perspective” at our corps. It was my husband's turn to preach this morning and it was an excellent sermon!

The following are excerpts from his sermon. I wanted to share it because it really spoke to me.

Thomas Kuhn, the science historian who coined the phrase, “paradigm shift”, in a paper in 1962, on talking about revolutions in science said this:
“Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. More importantly, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.”

Let me paraphrase this for our context:
“Led by a new paradigm, Salvationists adopt new ways and look in new places. More importantly, during revival, Salvationists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the longstanding traditional Corps had been suddenly transported to a spiritual depth where familiar ways and familiar people are seen in a different light and are joined by new ways and new people as well.”


Stephen Covey said, “Paradigm shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another, and those shifts create powerful change.” For him when truth was revealed, and he realized the father sitting next to him was not an incompetent parent, but a grieving widow he said, “My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.

Allow the Spirit to take hold of you and break the mold that keeps you comfortable where you are. Allow the Spirit to take hold of this Corps to break any bonds that keep us from being all that we can be as a relevant, effectual, spiritual force in this community. This corporate paradigm shift has not so much to do with old ways and methods verses new ways and methods as it has to do with a fundamental change in the our hearts. Faith, if not growing, becomes mundane and mediocre. We need people excited about the Word of God, powerful in their witness and prayer, deep in their knowledge of their Savior. And when that happens, our corps becomes a growing vibrant community, not because of our worship style or clever programming, but because of the Holy Spirit’s power in the lives of everyone who worships and serves in this place.