The streetlight effect

A policeman finds a man searching for something under a streetlight. The man says he lost his keys and they both start searching. After a moment, the policeman asks if the man is sure he lost his keys there. “No,” the man replies, “I lost them in the park.” The policeman then asks why he is searching under the streetlight and the man replies, “This is where the light is.”

The streetlight effect occurs when we search for something where it is the easiest to look. FaithStyle is advocating that faith leaders complement their own FaithStyle with an understanding that whenever we deal with humans, communities or social networks, we are interacting with a wide range of faith perspectives.

If we lose our keys in the park at night, we will not find them under the streetlamp across the road just because we are good at finding things in bright light.

Likewise, we will not find the keys to the most challenging faith community issues by using only one perspective or method just because we are professionally trained to use it. Our own need to base our decisions on the careful use of previous methods of being and believing is often not suited to help people.