What You Need To Know
About Thought Viruses

When thought viruses infect ministry the results can be devastating because...

A thought virus is... an established unconscious thinking pattern... that infects and distorts perceptions of reality... and replaces thinking with beliefs... that make accurate knowledge impossible

Beliefs about the world and other people that are built up from defective perceptions of reality...act like the body's immune system does with real viruses...though with a major difference.

Those defective beliefs act as a barrier to immunize a person from objective facts that would actually cure the thought virus and delete it from your mental operating system.

And while the physical immune system strives for good health by protecting the body from harm...the poorly formed beliefs that make up the thought virus's immune system work to preserve defective thinking.

The beliefs that come from a thinking virus actually shield you from useful contact with reality.

And that is not a good thing for anyone...like a minister...who intervenes in other people's lives.

And like any virus...mental viruses can infect the thinking of anyone...anywhere.

For example...someone revealed a few years ago that a seminary in Austria had a large collection of pornographic movies that featured the seminarians and the faculty. The bishop's response to press inquiries was that it was "Only boyish pranks."

With our definition of ministry as...

you can see that religious formation of students for ministry is a religious activity...

And in the example above...ministry got derailed because a thinking virus...that "boys will be boys"...led to producing pornographic films with ministry formation students.

And this does not bring both the minister and the people closer to God.

Thinking viruses that trick the mind into believing that non-ministry is ministry is nothing new. In Matthew's gospel (Mt 7:21ff) Jesus warns about the evil effects of non-ministry passing itself off as ministry.

To read other examples from the clinical record of thinking viruses that create serious boundary problems that interfere with the divine purpose and goal of ministry...click on the following links...

adultery as spiritual direction hot tub ministry to resolve parental issues embezzling to donate to the poor sex abuse as ministry conscience doesn't matter

And the good news is that...unlike some physical viruses...thought viruses can be prevented and cured.

We have all had the experience of changing our beliefs about people and experiences. And the defective beliefs that are symptoms of such thinking viruses can be changed as well.

And you already have the most powerful means to prevent these mental viruses...and that is the eleven word definition of ministry that allows you to see immediately whether or not you are engaged in ministry...which can only be religious activity...or something else entirely.

And you can also download below the FREE Ministry Audit ebook that will get you up to speed quickly about what you are doing that is ministry and what is not ministry.

And much of your ministry work will be helping people to recognize thought virus thinking that has its impact on their lives...and on their relationship to God.

You may have questions or comments. (We especially like comments about how we can do things better.) If so...write to us. And also ...consider this...

Protect God's work. Protect yourself...your ministry...and those to whom God sent you to minister. SUBSCRIBE to our monthly newsletter The Boundary Hunter. To subscribe just click on the book cover below and download your FREE copy of The Ministry Audit

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