Over the past eight years I have had the privilege of discipling and caring for the souls of college students here at Lancaster Bible College.\u00a0\u00a0 Often this formation comes in the form of helping young men and women navigate the beginning stages of discovering their true identity.\u00a0 Now, identity is a tricky thing.\u00a0 At its\u00a0 core, identity answers the
\nquestion, \u201cWho are we?\u201d\u00a0 Discovering however, goes way beyond asking a question.\u00a0 It is a complex journey of sifting through each person\u2019s heritage, experiences, education and even the language we grew up hearing.\u00a0 Our heritages shape who we are.\u00a0 For the good, as well as for the bad.\u00a0 Unconsciously, we make decisions based off repeated messages ingrained in our minds from those we grew up hearing.\u00a0 Most of us use these embedded messages to choose the type of work we will go after, how we speak to our children, how we relate to our co-workers and even how we spiritually form others.<\/p>\n
This past week while reading Visual Faith by William Dyrness, I was struck by the significance of how art connects us to deeper levels of worship and formation.\u00a0 Images which exist deep within our own souls, can often be reshaped, challenged or even healed<\/strong> through a sister or brother carefully crafting their own perspective through art.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago I came across a powerful clip produced by Dove, called \u201cReal Beauty Sketches.\u201d\u00a0 During my time watching I was impacted by the drastic difference in how one perceives themselves as compared to another.\u00a0 It also begged a another question, \u201cIs there a third perspective, which is completely different than the first two?\u201d\u00a0 Go ahead and watch, reflect.<\/p>\n Sketch One \u2013 How we see ourselves\u2026\u00a0 <\/strong>A few years back I worked with one of the most creative people I\u2019ve ever met.\u00a0 She had more gifts and talents in her little pinky then I had in my whole body.\u00a0 Yet, every time I complimented her or said something nice, she immediately shot down the compliment with a derogatory remark about herself.\u00a0 Messages and labels from our past are extremely powerful.\u00a0 If held hostage to them, they can often keep us from experiencing\u00a0 a deeper healing in our own souls.\u00a0 Part of healthy formation is healing emotionally from our pasts.<\/p>\n Sketch Two \u2013 How others often see us\u2026 <\/strong>We assume that others see us the same or worse then we see ourselves.\u00a0 However, research proves otherwise.\u00a0 Almost 90 percent of the time, those around you and I have a healthier perspective of your sketch than you do.\u00a0 Our need for listening to the broader community\u00a0 of God is essential to our formation and refining our own perspectives.<\/p>\n Sketch Three \u2013 How God sees us\u2026 <\/strong>While watching the Dove video I was struck by the question \u201cHow would a third sketch look created by God?\u201d\u00a0 Could you imagine!\u00a0 The ability to see\u00a0 yourself as God sees yourself.\u00a0 All throughout scripture we see the concept of the Imago Dei, the image of God imprinted into each one of us.\u00a0 I sense my third sketch would be even profoundly clearer\u00a0 then the first two sketches.<\/p>\n The very shaping of our souls is most often connected to deeply through the artist and their art.\u00a0 How has art been shaping you?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past eight years I have had the privilege of discipling and caring for the souls of college students here at Lancaster Bible College.\u00a0\u00a0 Often this formation comes in the form of helping young men and women navigate the beginning stages of discovering their true identity.\u00a0 Now, identity is a tricky thing.\u00a0 At its\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,289],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-dyrness","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2944,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/2944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThree Sketches, Three Perspectives on Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n