Every two seconds someone in America becomes a victim of Identity Theft. Criminals steal secret information from victims and use that information to destroy their reputation, personal image and credit worthiness. It’s an invasive crime since our identities stand at the very center of our person-hood.
In my life, one of the more difficult faith principles to
get my mind around is how I am made in God’s image. As I try to imagine
God being like me he seems very small.
As I try to imagine me being like God it seems too big. Honestly, it’s overwhelming the more I
understand my shortcomings standing in the shadow of God’s goodness.
As I've dealt with my own image problem over the past two
decades I've benefited from some very insightful mentors and practical
tools. I can still remember the feeling
of freedom I felt realizing that I wasn't “backward” (a term popular in Appalachian
families) but was simply introverted.
Realizing I wasn't “stupid” but was instead contemplative, allowed me to
embrace my truer self and quit pretending to be something I wasn't.
In my work over the past several years with struggling families
I have noticed an undeniable trend. Poor
people, struggling people, people in vulnerable places too often believe some
terrible things about themselves. What’s
worse is that they usually express those traits in hopeless terms, discounting
their value or ability to change.
Without using terms like “generational curse” or “ancestral jinx” they
describe their circumstances as if they are predestined to live in their
current difficulty. Poverty isn't always
a result of poor choices but there are changes that must be made to break
generational poverty. These changes
start with a belief and self-awareness about the “uniqueness of you”. I’m not talking about the self-esteem movement
that tells us we can “be anything we want to be” but about understanding better
our unique identity and our purpose. I believe generational change starts with individual
disrupters. Someone deciding to see
themselves differently and stand in the gap for future generations.
To help these disrupters
we (Joshua’s Place) have created a development course called Discover IDU
(Identity University). The idea came when
I realized I had been the benefactor of some great tools throughout my personal
and spiritual development. Meyer-Briggs,
Strength Finders, Disc and many other tools used to help me know me better. These tools help with self-awareness and
create a foundation of change. Individuals stuck in generational poverty
usually don’t have access to these types of tools and rarely are given the
opportunity to reflect on personal uniqueness.
We will be utilizing The Birkman Assessment tool that
expresses individual results in terms of Strengths and Needs and in relational
terms. Using this tool as our basis, we
will then teach through the four key relationships we all have; the
relationship with our self, others, our community and God. We believe a foundation of self-awareness
coupled with relevant teaching, in a trusted environment can help generational
disrupters change their futures. We also believe we can help them reclaim the
God-given identity that has been robbed from them.
If you’d like to know more about this you can email me at kpeyton@joshuasplace.cc.
