Spiritual Paradigm Shifts

[imperfectchristian]

I would like to discuss this and hear your thoughts.


Editied and re-worded: What I guess I really meant to ask was if anyone had ever had a paradigm shift (other than salvation)...that is an earth shaking, life altering spiritual change.

Salvation would be a good benchmark I think for measuring what I mean when I say "paradigm shift."

Something that changed you and the way you see things on a fundamental level.

 

[Tamara224]

I've had several small shifts that have amounted to a fairly big one.

I don't know what is more likely. I think that for many people being born again is a HUGE paradigm shift that happens all of a sudden. For me, I was 5 when I got saved so I didn't have much of a paradigm to begin with.

I think what modern language calls a "paradigm shift" is what the Bible calls getting more mature.

 

[SpiritPsalmist]

I would like to discuss this and hear your thoughts.

Some questions I have are...

Have you ever had one?

Yes

Have you had more than one and if so how many and or how frequent?

For me, since I left home at age 18 it's been approximately every 5 - 8 years or so.

Is it / are they more likely to occur as a series of small shifts that together over a period of time constitute a major shift or is it more likely to be a single, major shift?

For me it's usually a series of small shifts, then the major shift. Such as leaving the type of church I grew up in and becoming Messianic. Each church the Lord led me too was just for a period of time. I learned a lot from each and I matured within each one. I learned different things from each group. Each one seemed to flow naturally one to the other. When I finely made, what I believe was the biggie it just was not that big of an issue...for me anyway. I knew what I believed and what I did not believe. I did not find any major teaching from the "biggie" that was in conflict with anything I already believed. I felt that not only was it the most logical direction for me to go but it was very much God led.

Which do you think is more likely to be effective / longlasting: small incremental shifts or single major shifts?

For me, it's been the small incremental shifts.

 

[JimB]

Of course I have had spiritual paradigm shifts.

I think that’s called growth.

Thanks for asking.

~Anne Teak

War never decides who is right, only who is left.​

​

 

[nephilimiyr]

I would like to discuss this and hear your thoughts.

Some questions I have are...

Have you ever had one?

Have you had more than one and if so how many and or how frequent?

Is it / are they more likely to occur as a series of small shifts that together over a period of time constitute a major shift or is it more likely to be a single, major shift?

Which do you think is more likely to be effective / longlasting: small incremental shifts or single major shifts?

I think you have to do a better job of explaining what you believe a spiritual paradigm shift is because I don't know if I'm answering you the way you want me to.

To me, a spiritual paradigm shift is more a change of belief in a theology and or change in a doctrinal stance. Being brought up Roman Catholic, yes I have had many changes in those kinds of beliefs. Even while being a Protestant I have had many changes in belief.

The most recent was a couple of years ago when learning the differences in body, soul, and spirit. That it was our spirit that changed when we became born again, saved.

A smaller change that I have had recently yet still important is my belief in confession of sin and confessionism.

 

[pdudgeon]

i've moved houses more often than i've had paradigm shifts.

but there have been about four shifts over the last 30 years.
the first one of those shifts was in the late 70's because the denomination itself shifted and became more liberal in it's outlook. so i moved churches.

the second shift was the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

the third shift in the 90's was again because the denomination shifted it's outlook and became (rather famously) more liberal. so once again in 1999 i moved churches to a more conservative denomination.

the last shift in @2005 has been a smaller one. I am still in the same congregation, waiting for the "A-HA!" to happen to them.
they dance right up to the line of belief, but i think they've been scared off because of all the negative press associated with the name.

 

[imperfectchristian]

Of course I have had spiritual paradigm shifts.

I think that’s called growth.

Thanks for asking.

~Anne Teak

War never decides who is right, only who is left.​

Oh well I guess I did kind of contradict myself.

 

[imperfectchristian]

I think you have to do a better job of explaining what you believe a spiritual paradigm shift is because I don't know if I'm answering you the way you want me to.

To me, a spiritual paradigm shift is more a change of belief in a theology and or change in a doctrinal stance. Being brought up Roman Catholic, yes I have had many changes in those kinds of beliefs. Even while being a Protestant I have had many changes in belief.

The most recent was a couple of years ago when learning the differences in body, soul, and spirit. That it was our spirit that changed when we became born again, saved.

A smaller change that I have had recently yet still important is my belief in confession of sin and confessionism.

I started out thinking one thing and ended up with something else...hence the contradictiveness of the OP.

What I guess I really meant to ask was if anyone had ever had a true paradigm shift...that is an earth shaking, life altering spiritual change and redefines who you are.

I know two for sure in my own life

1. Salvation

2. baptism of the Holy Spirit

Nothing else has been a real paradigm shift change for me.

I have had changes of heart and mind, but nothing that would quite be classified as a spiritual paradigm shift other than the two mentioned above. I might also count my expereinces surrounding the Brownsville Revival as a paradigm shift in my life.

hopefully that makes more sense...I'll go back and try to make the OP a little more understandable.

 

[nephilimiyr]

I started out thinking one thing and ended up with something else...hence the contradictiveness of the OP.

What I guess I really meant to ask was if anyone had ever had a true paradigm shift...that is an earth shaking, life altering spiritual change that transforms you at the very core of your being and redefines who you are.

I know two for sure in my own life

1. Salvation

2. baptism of the Holy Spirit

Nothing else has been a real paradigm shift change for me.

I have had changes of heart and mind, but nothing that would quite be classified as a spiritual paradigm shift other than the two mentioned above.

hopefully that makes more sense...I'll go back and try to make the OP a little more understandable.

Oh, well definately I would have to say the night I was born again. Still, when the teaching of body, soul, and spirit finally sunk in it did change the way I thought about things very drastically.

I've also had negative spiritual paradigm events. Like a couple of years after being born again deciding I didn't want to have anything to do with religion, the church, or God.

 

[ralangley]

My biggest one was three years ago (Dec. 18) when I became a Christian after 25 years immersed in the new age wilderness. I didn't know one Christian and felt like the an alien freak when I walked into a church. That was the big one. Over the last three years, I've had a continuous stream of shifts in my thinking - moving from a stanch Universalist to a Pentecostal, tongue-talking, bible-thumping born-again Christian. My latest shift has been recently when I realized I'm a ..groan, gulp, puke a little...baby Christian! (I had assumed I was as mature and seasoned as everyone else, perhaps more so....) I have so much more to learn.

 

[imperfectchristian]

Oh, well definately I would have to say the night I was born again. Still, when the teaching of body, soul, and spirit finally sunk in it did change the way I thought about things very drastically.

I've also had negative spiritual paradigm events. Like a couple of years after being born again deciding I didn't want to have anything to do with religion, the church, or God.

Interesting...could you share a little more about those events...could you describe in what way the trichotomy of man doctrine equivalated to a paradigm shift...and also the negative paradigm shift...was their a paradigm shift that brought you out of that or was it a slow progression back to where you were once before?

Thanks for sharing!

 

[JimB]

I started out thinking one thing and ended up with something else...hence the contradictiveness of the OP.

What I guess I really meant to ask was if anyone had ever had a true paradigm shift...that is an earth shaking, life altering spiritual change and redefines who you are.

I know two for sure in my own life

1. Salvation

2. baptism of the Holy Spirit

Nothing else has been a real paradigm shift change for me.

I have had changes of heart and mind, but nothing that would quite be classified as a spiritual paradigm shift other than the two mentioned above. I might also count my expereinces surrounding the Brownsville Revival as a paradigm shift in my life.

hopefully that makes more sense...I'll go back and try to make the OP a little more understandable.

When I shifted my Pentecostal paradigm to Charismatic, it was life altering. Then when it shifted to Word of Faith, it was life altering. After WOF, I knew I had been mistaught and misled in many of the central points upon which I had build my “faith”. In the mid-90’s I vowed to the Lord that I would trash everything I had been taught, if He would teach me Himself. And He has done that for about a dozen years and brought me closer to truth than I would have ever made it on my own with the “help” of teachers and their man-made doctrines. I am now what some might call Post-Charismatic or Empowered Evangelical or Emerging or whatever, but I am not letting labels put me in any of the boxes I have been trapped in in the past.

I am still in paradigm shift and probably will be until I die. I have not arrived, I know, and I have learned that it is not the destination that is the thrill; it’s the journey.

~Anne Teak

War never decides who is right, only who is left.​

​

 

[nephilimiyr]

Interesting...could you share a little more about those events...could you describe in what way the trichotomy of man doctrine equivalated to a paradigm shift...and also the negative paradigm shift...was their a paradigm shift that brought you out of that or was it a slow progression back to where you were once before?

Thanks for sharing!

Again, the way I view what a spiritual paradigm shift is that of a major doctrinal change or one on theology.

The paradifm shift I had on learning about body, soul, and spirit caused me to view myself totally different. before I had a very bad habit of looking down on myself, feeling guilty, defeated, etc., etc. When I learned that God wasn't mad at me because in spirit am I am the righteousness of God in Christ, but only in my spirit, I did rejoice! I then learned that by putting off the old self and putting on the new self didn't sound so difficult to do where as before I felt it impossible.

I thought, this new self, what is it and how do I know I have it. I really didn't believe I had this new self. But all of us born again christians do have it, it's the righteous and holy born again spirit that God created in us when we first became born again. Anyway, once I found this out I no longer hate myself or feel guilty and can trust in God to do all the changes in me that are necessary.

As for the negative spiritual paradigm shift, it's a long story but suffice it to say, I grew to hate myself out of feeling guilty because I could not control my old self from taking over. I was like Paul in the 7th chapter of Romans. I then grew to blame God for it all and became very disillisioned. For a long time I didn't want to have anything to do with God. I was like one of those who would only pray when I got in real trouble, otherwise I never prayed to him yet still believed in him.

All of this took a long period of time though. None of what I said, baring my first born again experience, happend in one day. Actually my born again experience grew on me too. In the RCC at age 14 I was studying to be confirmed and was reading the Bible every night. And wha-la, the Holy Spirit grabed me, but I didn't make a decision on it until after a few days, or weeks, can't rightly remember.

 

[Cassidy]

Oh man! Yes!!!

With salvation...religion/legalism. Finding out who I am in Christ...certainly changed everything in my life. My faith in general.

One huge shift of paradigm has been happening since I left that church I grew up in back in 94.

 

[imperfectchristian]

When I shifted my Pentecostal paradigm to Charismatic, it was life altering. Then when it shifted to Word of Faith, it was life altering. After WOF, I knew I had been mistaught and misled in many of the central points upon which I had build my “faith”. In the mid-90’s I vowed to the Lord that I would trash everything I had been taught, if He would teach me Himself. And He has done that for about a dozen years and brought me closer to truth than I would have ever made it on my own with the “help” of teachers and their man-made doctrines. I am now what some might call Post-Charismatic or Empowered Evangelical or Emerging or whatever, but I am not letting labels put me in any of the boxes I have been trapped in in the past.

I am still in paradigm shift and probably will be until I die. I have not arrived, I know, and I have learned that it is not the destination that is the thrill; it’s the journey.

~Anne Teak

War never decides who is right, only who is left.​

I think you really touch on something that I identify with...in my little short vapor of existence so far I have found God to be alot bigger than I give Him credit for.

It is beginning to set with me that doctrine is man's way of defining the undefinable. God is in the UPC church just as much as He is in the Roman Catholic church, just as much as He is in the baptist church and so on and so forth.

God is a big God.

 

[nephilimiyr]

Oh man! Yes!!!

With salvation...religion/legalism. Finding out who I am in Christ...certainly changed everything in my life. My faith in general.

One huge shift of paradigm has been happening since I left that church I grew up in back in 94.

You and I definatly relate!

 

[imperfectchristian]

Again, the way I view what a spiritual paradigm shift is that of a major doctrinal change or one on theology.

The paradifm shift I had on learning about body, soul, and spirit caused me to view myself totally different. before I had a very bad habit of looking down on myself, feeling guilty, defeated, etc., etc. When I learned that God wasn't mad at me because in spirit am I am the righteousness of God in Christ, but only in my spirit, I did rejoice! I then learned that by putting off the old self and putting on the new self didn't sound so difficult to do where as before I felt it impossible.

I thought, this new self, what is it and how do I know I have it. I really didn't believe I had this new self. But all of us born again christians do have it, it's the righteous and holy born again spirit that God created in us when we first became born again. Anyway, once I found this out I no longer hate myself or feel guilty and can trust in God to do all the changes in me that are necessary.

As for the negative spiritual paradigm shift, it's a long story but suffice it to say, I grew to hate myself out of feeling guilty because I could not control my old self from taking over. I was like Paul in the 7th chapter of Romans. I then grew to blame God for it all and became very disillisioned. For a long time I didn't want to have anything to do with God. I was like one of those who would only pray when I got in real trouble, otherwise I never prayed to him yet still believed in him.

All of this took a long period of time though. None of what I said, baring my first born again experience, happend in one day. Actually my born again experience grew on me too. In the RCC at age 14 I was studying to be confirmed and was reading the Bible every night. And wha-la, the Holy Spirit grabed me, but I didn't make a decision on it until after a few days, or weeks, can't rightly remember.

Thank you for sharing...I grew up in a inter-denominational Pentecostal holiness church so you can imagine...I was taught works based salvation in pristine fashion. Grace was just God's wilingness not to give you a chance at righteousness.

Anything with a drum beat in it was rock music which was in turn satanic.

All Bibles that were not KJV were an attempt to take the deity of Christ away.

etc...

 

[imperfectchristian]

Oh man! Yes!!!

With salvation...religion/legalism. Finding out who I am in Christ...certainly changed everything in my life. My faith in general.

One huge shift of paradigm has been happening since I left that church I grew up in back in 94.

I realize I still have issues dealing with many things in this area that I thought I had more or less resolved and was at peace with.

It can be frustrating to say the least.

 

[Cassidy]

You and I definatly relate!

Yeh I noticed that when you told your story in that other thread!

Turning from God...giving up...yep! Been there

 

[Cassidy]

I realize I still have issues dealing with many things in this area that I thought I had more or less resolved and was at peace with.

It can be frustrating to say the least.

Yeh I hate that! Just when you think it's safe boom! Here's yet another issue!!!

It helps to share though, which I know you do a lot of...sharing helps you learn sometimes