Disequalibrium

I have been curious about how people change. Part of my education has been spent in the camp setting learning why camp can be such an effective change agent in people’s lives.  One of the terms that I have learned is ‘disequalibrium’. This is the idea of taking people out of their comfort zone.  It forces us to create new routines, experiment with different ways of living life and solving problems.  I am a wilderness trip leader and have experience seeing people enter into a foreign world without cell phones, refrigerators, strick schedules, and independant living.  It is amazing to see the changes that happen in peoples’ lives.  

I have come to see the need for disequalibrium to happen in order for change to happen in our lives.  If we are comfortable with the temperature in our house we will never get up and change the thermostat.  Changing our lives takes a whole lot more effort than getting off the couch and changing the thermostat. We have to become uncomfortable with the status quo of our life in order for us to make the effort to bring about lasting change.  The disciplines can be the disequalibrium and the tool to help us encounter God and bring about lasting change.