How to deal with deviants

de·vi·ant  

/ˈdēvēənt/

Adjective Departing from usual or accepted standards, esp. in social or sexual behavior.

Noun A deviant person or thing.

W.I Thomas noticed that "Things which men perceive as real are real in their consequences."

In mission and ministry with the groups of people who have something (let's say us) and those who don't (let's call them deviants) we sometimes stop at attempts to economize how to best get the stuff that we have to the people who don't.

If we take a step further or take a step back, we might try for a moment to understand these deviants.

The homeless, I was told by a homeless person, wish sometimes that people would "quit trying to figure out homeless people."

What we think of deviants often comes from news sources, friends and family, and our pew and Sunday school seat.

Our perceptions of deviants are mediated by the media of our ministry.

In this scene from West Side Story we get the idea that these deviants are missing something that can be provided by the right resource.

The troubles of the deviants are seen as systemic and sociological.  But our troubles occur individually as well.

What we often think of the deviant (you can substitute homeless, poor, unbeliever, fundamentalist, liberal, or any "they are wrong to my right" label you wish) comes from news, theology, or religious beliefs that we figure are just "showing it as it is".

And the fact is that they are all wrong.

Wrong for a reason.

They might even be wrong for good reason.  For earnest, committed, Biblically based reason.

When a member of a church focus group heard some of our ideas about developing ways to get to know some of the folks we minister to on a personal level and then help each other get to know our abilities and gifts that we can bring to the community development table, she remarked "you better check with the mission people about that."

As in maybe the mission people wouldn't like that? Because the mission people had different reasons?  Like getting people on board with a belief system that would make it so that they could get to heaven too. Like us. Like me!

In reality the mission people, if this is their reason, know this is wrong and the people in the focus group know it's wrong, but we seem to have this understanding that we are wrong and the people in our congregations know we are wrong, but we both have a role to play and we are doing it for the right reason (in this case salvation.)

The way to discipleship might lead through coming to understand what these good reasons are for this wrong way thinking.

How do we interpret each other's experiences and beliefs so that we can get to know each other and God?

It might start with trying to get to know the deviants before we try to understand them, much less fix them.

How to deal with deviants?

Make sure you know some.