The Lenses We Live By

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What if the way Jesus saw the world could transform how you live your everyday life? In this illuminating conversation, we unpack the concept of mental models—those invisible frameworks that shape everything from how we parent and lead to how we interpret Scripture and engage in mission.

Think of mental models like prescription glasses. While rarely noticed, they constantly filter how we see reality.

Where do these frameworks come from? Our first formation in family, personal experiences that shape our beliefs, education that trains our thinking, and the cultural waters we swim in all contribute to our unique set of lenses. These mental models are neither inherently good nor bad—they're simply the tools our brains use to make sense of a complex world. The question becomes: are they accurate and life-giving?

What makes this conversation particularly powerful is realizing that Jesus was consistently in the business of disrupting flawed mental models. He challenged how people viewed God, showing Him as an intimate Father rather than just a distant deity. He transformed perceptions of the marginalized, treating each person as an image-bearer. He inverted models of power, demonstrating that true leadership comes through service.

Join us as we preview our exciting new series exploring the mental models behind Jesus' approach to missional discipleship—convictions like "God's presence precedes our participation," "God is like Jesus," and "God cares about who we are, not just what we do." Through examining and updating our mental models, we can align our thinking more closely with Christ and participate more fully in His mission.

How might your life change if you could see the world through Jesus' eyes? Listen now and begin the journey of transformation.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to
practice and embody the way ofJesus in our everyday lives.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to listen.
Today we're kicking off a brandnew series focused on a mental
model for missional discipleship, a framework for living out our
faith as disciples of Jesus ineveryday life.
Whether we're aware of it ornot, we all have mental models,

(00:25):
deep convictions and assumptionsthat shape how we see and take
action in the world.
Mental models are kind of likeprescription lenses While often
invisible when wearing them,they constantly and consistently
shape the way we think, feeland act.
So what were the mental modelsJesus lived by?
What conviction shaped howJesus saw people, responded to

(00:46):
needs, formed disciples andjoined God's mission in the
world?
That's what this series is allabout.
Each week, we'll unpack a keyconviction that shaped Jesus'
way of life and explore how itcan shape ours too, as we seek
to be a community as disciplesliving on mission in the way of
Jesus, to to be a community asdisciples living on mission in

(01:06):
the way of jesus.
So today we're going to kickoff this series by discussing
what mental models are and whythey matter.
Let's get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Welcome everybody.
My name is Josiah.
I'm Katie.
And I'm Mac.
It's great to be here with youtwo again Got something to get
us started today.
For those of you who aren'taware, it is now summer break
and for those of us with kids,that is probably more meaningful
than others.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Very jarring and disrupting.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'm curious what's something you're looking forward
to and something you're notlooking forward to for summer?

Speaker 1 (01:51):
We've got a couple of trips planned.
Uh we try to go to uh.
Josie's side of the family hasa place on leech Lake in
Northern Minnesota, so we try togo there, uh, at some point
during the summer, and Josie hasso many memories there growing
up as a kid and of course, thetwo of us have been going there
for around 20, over 20 years,and now our boys have memories,

(02:12):
so that's always fun and it's aplace that like even if I have
to work a little bit, it's justsuch a great place to even get
things done.
You're just like it's awesome.
And then we're taking a trip toYosemite, Kings Canyon and
Sequoia in August.
So I'm looking forward to that.
I'll be fun.
Man, I think the annoyances isjust having bodies at home all

(02:38):
the time and the lack ofstructure that is present, you
know.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
So for me, like specifically, I tend to have
like really productive windowsat home a few times a week where
I'm like doing my sermon prepand like really like no
distractions just plugging away,and that space, like my most
productive space, is Gonzo inthe summer.
So it really requires somereconfiguring and creativity.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, it's not so much that having the kids home
is bad.
Of course it's nice to see them, but their life goes on
complete hold while yourscontinues.
And there's all of theseexpectations around what are you
going to do to entertain mysummer?
And then there's also this likecomplete lack of they don't

(03:29):
have any structures inthemselves to manage their own
time and things.
And so they depend on you for alot and you're like I gotta
keep, I gotta keep going.
You just stopped everything youwere doing, but I gotta keep
moving.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
And the grocery bill skyrockets.
Because they're bored, so theyeat.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's just like oh man , that is like yeah, sorry.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, that would also be the one thing that I'm not
looking forward to.
My brain feels so full justwith.
Our childcare schedule isliterally different every week.
Alex and I both work full-time,so we've got a mix of a family
friend and differentgrandparents.
Just every grandparents andjust every single day throughout
the summer is practically adifferent arrangement.
So, um, and then there'sbaseball schedules and sports

(04:11):
stuff and all of that.
So I have a shared note.
That's just like all thesenotes and my brain is kind of
spinning.
Who's picking them up?
And all that the one thing I'mlooking forward to.
We don't have any trips in thesummer, but my parents live on a
Lake in town, they live on thebell and they have a paddleboard
and oh, nice, and I'm reallylooking forward to getting out
on the paddleboard.
I love there's something aboutjust going out when the lake is
really like still and calm.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I love it.
There's something for me aboutsitting on the shore or on a
pier and watching someone losetheir balance on a paddleboard
and totally biff it.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
I find hilarious.
Would you like to come overwhile I paddleboard?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I've seen it a handful of times and I just
think it's so funny.
They've never gotten hurt.
It's just kind of a funnymoment.
I'm like, oh, there they go.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to.
I have a few weekends that havescheduled off little tiny trips
here and there that I'm reallylooking forward to.
They're in my sights as like,all right, just keep getting
through and I'm gonna get sometime away.
But I think the thing I'm notlooking forward to is, um, yeah,
it's the unstructured time forfor kids and and again, it's not

(05:18):
like I love structure that muchmyself, but there's just so
many expectations around um, howthey're going to behave and
what they're not willing to do,and then there's expectations
around.
You know, I'm I'm bored.
That's your problem.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
It becomes your problem.
If they're annoying, it does.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
And then the snacks, like trying to manage, uh, when
food's eaten, and all that kindof stuff.
So it's, all just the basicannoyance things.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well, speaking of paddleboard wipeouts and summer
shenanigans.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Eating too many snacks.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Hey, before we jump in, I want to just say this I
met with someone yesterday whotrains church planters.
That was someone yesterday whotrains church planters and he
uses our podcast with the churchplanters.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Help them grow their emotional maturity and things
like that.
That's cool.
Yeah, and I just thought youknow our goal isn't to become
the next Mel Robbins, like theworld's best podcast or whatever
, but I do run into people whohave found it helpful and enjoy
listening in.
And I just run into people whohave found it helpful, um, and
and enjoy listening in, and Ijust want to say, if that's you,
would you please considerleaving a review that helps and

(06:33):
or share an episode that youfound helpful If you know
someone who would benefit fromit.
That's like kind of.
We do put a fair amount of hardwork into this, so it's nice to
know that like hey, it's, it's,it's having an impact, and so,
if you like it, feel free towrite a review.
The other way you can likespread the word is by sharing an
episode you found particularlyhelpful.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, I love hearing those stories from people too.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cause I mean we're talking into
microphones in a small room andyou often don't know, like, what
difference it's making.
So it's always helpful whenit's like, oh, I really
connected with that or thishelped me with this area of my
life.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
So yeah, that's awesome, Okay.
Well, today we're starting anew series where we'll explore
the core convictions that guidehow we follow Jesus in everyday
life.
So think of these as big ideasor truths that help us make
sense of the world and shape theway we live, at our faith and
our homes and in our workplacesand beyond.
So another way to say this isthat we're looking at mental

(07:28):
models behind missionaldiscipleship, the inner
framework that helps us see andrespond to life through the lens
of Jesus.
So let's dive into this First.
I imagine that the phrasemental model might be new to
some of our listeners, so let'sflesh out what we mean by that
term.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, I mean it's relatively new to me.
I was first introduced to theidea of a mental model with my
work at the Leader's Journeythey use that phrase quite a bit
and they were introduced tothat idea by a guy named
Peterson Gay who wrote a book, apretty well-known book, called
the Fifth Discipline, the Artand Practice of the Learning

(08:05):
Organization, and I read it.
So I grabbed the definitionthat he used in that book.
As far as I know, he kind ofcoined that, but conceptually
it's not new.
But here's what he says Mentalmodels are deeply ingrained
assumptions, generalizations oreven pictures or images that
influence how we understand theworld and how we take action.

(08:26):
Very often we are notconsciously aware of our mental
models or the effects they haveon our behavior, end quote.
So maybe to kind of summarize,a mental model is sort of like
you could think of it as aninternal map that helps us make
sense of how the world works, amap that helps us make sense of
how the world works.
They include our mental models,include a set of assumptions or

(08:47):
convictions that shape how wetake action in the world and
perhaps most significantly,something that Peterson Gage has
said is that they operateoutside of our conscious
awareness.
So we all have them, but we'reoften not aware of how they're
influencing the way we see orbehave or take action.
So I thought it might behelpful.

(09:08):
Sometimes it's hard to justdigest content like abstract,
like an abstract definition.
Metaphors often help us right.
They can help us sort of digestor have a reference point for
what we're talking about.
So let's maybe discuss a fewmetaphors that get at what
mental models are, and one thatis used commonly is that they're

(09:31):
sort of like wearing a pair ofglasses which, by the way, you
guys are coming up on this whenyou hit 40, all of a sudden your
eyesight starts to change Maybemid-40s for sure, but like I
mean it's you know what.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
I mean, are you there , mac?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, I'm starting to get there.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Are you one of those people in the grocery store
that's holding the Not quite?

Speaker 2 (09:53):
that bad.
Can you hold it further awayfrom me?
I need to read it.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, no not quite that bad.
I a long time ago just startedwearing readers because I read a
lot and I noticed my eyes weregetting tired.
And then last time I went infor a checkup it was like, oh,
the prescription changed alittle bit.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, this is funny.
I remember my dad telling me avery similar thing.
He just said it was like oneday he looked down to read
something and it's blurry andhe's like he's never worn
glasses his whole life.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
It's just at one point.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
His eyes are just like I can't do this anymore.
How?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
funny.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Well, and you always blow me away, katie, because you
were like on the cutting edgeof LASIK surgery.
Yes, right, yeah, I knew anadvanced technology of LASIK.
Yeah, so I had an experimentdone with my eyes.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
I would never do that .

Speaker 3 (10:38):
But I got free LASIK out of it.
That's awesome and I was likeright out of college, I think.
So I was like, yeah, sure signme up.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Sounds like a great idea.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
It was free and I can see so mental models.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
All that to say, mental models are kind of like
wearing a pair of glasses.
You go to the ophthalmologistand they do all these tests to
determine what your uniqueeyesight is.
The worst test, by the way, iswhen they blow like the fast,
like you know what I mean Likeyeah, you put your face on this
thing and all of a sudden theypop you with some air.
It's just the worst, anyway.

(11:10):
So they kind of like do a bunchof tests to determine what your
eyesight is, and then theyobviously give you some
corrective lenses so that youcan see.
But here's the thing is, whenyou're wearing glasses, you're
often looking through theprescription lenses, but unless
there's like a smudge, you know,or something inhibits like,

(11:30):
you're often not even aware thatyou're wearing these
prescription lenses anymore.
You just become accustomed towearing them.
And yet those prescriptionlenses are determining or
shaping how you literally seeeverything.
You're looking through them,and one of the hard things about
mental models is they're sortof like looking through a pair
of prescription lenses.

(11:51):
But it actually requires ustaking our glasses off and
looking at the glassesthemselves Rather than just
looking through the lenses.
We actually have to take ourglasses off and look at the
prescription itself to determinewhether it's accurate or not.
That kind of gets at what we'retalking about.
What else, yeah, metaphors.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, I like that one .
Another one I thought of was anoperating system of a computer.
Like if you think about acomputer, you don't see it, but
it has an operating system thatkind of determines how
everything works.
And if you switch from, say,like a Mac to a PC, even basic
things like opening a file orfinding your settings can feel
really frustrating and confusingbecause the system underneath

(12:30):
it is different and I think ourmental models in the same way
determine how we kind of run ineveryday life.
And again, unless we recognizethe model we're using, we might
never realize that there's adifferent model.
As I did, I used a PC for thefirst.
What 25 years of my life?
One day I used a Mac.
I was like this is great.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, they have like liquid glass now, and it's the
latest update.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Really, what does that mean?

Speaker 1 (12:55):
I just saw like an article about like Mac releasing
their newest deal and it's sortof like this way of it's like
this image.
It's going to be moretranslucent and I don't know.
It's part of this update whichalso strikes me as interesting
and we'll get to this.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
But, like I, like this metaphor of an operating
system.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Apple often release software updates and so there's
also built into this mentalmodel work and we're going to
see how it.
Like this constant, you need tobe improving your mental models
.
Just as Apple constantly isgiving software updates, your
mental models need toconsistently be updated and
often those updates include bugfixes Like oh, it's fixing this

(13:36):
bug.
Some of your mental models haveproblems and those need to be
fixed, and some aspects are onthe right track, but they need
to be elevated.
I like that metaphor.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
It's not just seeing the world.
In a certain way, it's givingus the capacity to interpret
what's happening around us.
So it's not just observing andseeing what's happening, it's
also making meaning.
And that's where the operatingsystem needs the updating Right.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
And it's drawing attention to the fact that you
are making meaning and you aredoing some interpreting, and
oftentimes we're not aware thatwe're doing those things.
Another metaphor that iswell-known and I've mentioned
before in this podcast is thisidea, it's this phrase the map
is not the territory, and it wascoined by a Polish guy.

(14:29):
But it's this idea that whenyou're looking at a map, that's
not the same thing as the actualtopography that you're
traveling on right, and we allhave maps of how we make sense
of the world, sort of internalmaps but these maps are not the
same thing as the worldthemselves.
Those maps are interpretations,they're the meanings we've made

(14:52):
along the way.
One and I've mentioned thisbefore, but I think it might be
fun to review it.
One I am not an art geek.
I'm not going to a lot of artmuseums, or that's not really my
jam, but at some point I camenot an art geek, I'm not like
going to a lot of art museums,or like that's not really my jam
, but at some point I cameacross an artist that I that
continually points to thisdynamic in many different uh, uh

(15:14):
paintings, and it's a guy named, uh, renee Magritte.
I've mentioned him before.
Um, if you Googled ReneeMagritte, you would probably
recognize some of his paintings.
His most famous one is a guy ina top hat with an apple in
front of his face and, as Imentioned, I think, before, the
whole, uh, thomas crown affair,that movie, that end scene is

(15:36):
sort of like inspired by magrete.
But, um, I've mentioned twopaintings before, but I want to
remind you of them.
So I printed off, you guys, thetwo paintings I want to
reference so that you can seethem while I'm talking about
them.
If you're listening to this andin a position to google these
images, I'd encourage you to doso.
Obviously, don't do it ifyou're driving.

(15:57):
But the first one is called thehuman condition, okay, and when
you look at it you'll noticethere's a painting.
That's a painting where there'san easel placed inside the room
just in front of the window,and it's really interesting
because on the easel it's anunframed painting of the

(16:21):
landscape that seems to be inevery detail mapping what's
outside, on the actual landscapeoutside the window.
In fact, when I first saw thispainting, I didn't even notice
the easel at all, I just thoughtit was just like a picture of
what uh, of a room lookingoutside the window, um, but when
you look more carefully, that'swhen you'll notice the painting
on the easel and it'srepresenting that landscape

(16:43):
outside.
And the point is how we seereality.
Right, our seeing is likewhat's on the easel?
That's our mental model.
But what's on the easel isn'tthe actual landscape out on the
countryside.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
No, and in the painting it's actually blocking
your view from seeing the actuallandscape.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yes, the painting is, even though the painting is.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Even though the painting is meant to depict
what's happening outside, thepainting is blocking your view
from what's actually happening.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Exactly so.
The point is that ourunderstanding, our comprehension
of reality is that easel,what's on the easel?
Not the same as reality itself.
And then, of course, I havethis one in my office.
You've seen it before.
It's known as the treachery ofimages and it's a simple
painting of a tobacco pipe, justa standard pipe.

(17:32):
But under it it says in Frenchand I don't speak French, but it
says this is not a pipe.
And at first glance it'sconfusing.
It's designed to be like what?
Well, that's clearly a pipe,but the point is it's not a pipe

(17:53):
, it's a picture of a pipe.
And once again, this sort ofilluminates the distinction
between reality and what weperceive reality to be.
They aren't the same.
So the point is, when we'resort of entering this
conversation, we have toacknowledge and this can be hard
work, just to acknowledge thatwe all have a way of seeing the
world, and the way we see andthe way we make meaning and the
maps we have are not the same asreality itself.

(18:13):
Our understanding is notsynonymous with what's true.
Yes, right, and this is hardfor some people, because we
think, we like to think I haveunfiltered access to objective
reality or objective truth, butnone of us actually have that,
and that doesn't mean we can'tknow what's true.
It just means our way ofknowing isn't unfiltered.

(18:35):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah, yeah.
No one has just what's worthrepeating.
No one has access to realitywithout interpreting it first.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Yes, and this should soften our certainty.
It should soften our sense ofcertainty and it really
shouldn't be that hard toconvince anybody of.
You're not omniscient, youdon't have undiluted, unfiltered
or exhaustive access to realityJust none of us do and I think
acknowledging this should justsoften our certainty and

(19:08):
increase our humility.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, and I think I think that's true and it is
worth noting that, um, I think alot of us do, and myself
included.
We operate with this, thesemental models, but we don't stop
to ask like where did this comefrom, or is this really true,
or what is my mental model?
I think that's what we'retrying to do today.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, we're going to be.
We're going to be talking a lotabout that.
We could do probably a wholenother podcast series on how to
identify the mental models youhave, how you can change the
meaning you're making but, andhow to talk about that when
you're in dialogue with otherpeople and you realize, wow,
we're all filtering.
Think about the gospels for amoment.
There's a reason why there'sfour gospel accounts.
They were all seeing the samething, but have their own unique

(19:53):
lens of as they witnessed it.
And so you end up with fourunique accounts of the gospel,
of the story of Jesus.
And so what happens?
If we're in a room, the threeof us even, and we see something
.
We all have probably a slightlyunique way of viewing that.
So what does it look like tobegin to dialogue together about
that?
You need language to say hey,from where I sit, this is what I

(20:16):
see.
Oh, josiah, what do you seefrom where you sit?
Help me see what I'm missing.
You know what I mean.
And only as we include moreperspective.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
In that way do we get a fuller picture of what's
happening.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
That's part of the reason why just you and your
Bible isn't good enough.
You actually need a communityof people to interpret scripture
with increasing faithfulness,because otherwise you're just
going to be continuallymisreading things in light of
your own ignorance or yourmisguided mental models.
Okay, so let's look at someexamples.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, so one more way of getting at this is the term
schema.
So, in psychology, schemasserve as like buckets for
collecting information.
Your brain just doesn't receiveeverything in a blank slate way
.
It's categorizing andinterpreting information all the

(21:15):
time.
So they call these differentbuckets for processing things
schemas.
And it's important to note thatwe're not just sorting the
information.
It's not like a filing systemwhere it's just like oh, this is
where this information goes, iswhere this information goes.
Some of that is true, but theterm schema is getting at that

(21:36):
subconsciously.
These schemas are in charge ofinterpreting the data as well.
So we're constantly tellingourselves stories about what's
happening, based on the schemasfor each individual category of
thing happening in our lives.
Um, it's, uh, it's constantlyinterpreting and bringing and

(21:58):
making meaning of the worldaround us.
So, and and we have schemas for, like, everything in our lives.
Um, and to, like you said, mac,to get at this, we need to look
at more of what are the?
What are some specific examplesof some of these mental models?
Um, cause you'll, you'll seethat, even while we're
completely unaware, these mentalmodels are firing and they're

(22:19):
working in the background,making meaning of everything
that that's happening.
So if we start, let's just lookat one category marriage.
Okay, so we have mental modelsfor marriage.
All of us do.
If you're married, or even ifyou're not and you can get at
this with you've heard the termhappy wife, happy life.
Or if mama ain't happy,nobody's happy.

(22:41):
Although these are funny littlestatements that often a guy
will say like, oh, whatever shewants, just keep her happy.
Well, what's happeningunderneath that?
There are baked in assumptionsthat if I keep her happy, then
everything will be at peace.
Like I am subconsciouslyinterpreting events around me

(23:02):
and managing things in such away without even thinking about
it, thinking that this is true,and we do that with so many
different things in our lives.
Marriage specifically you know,you could go into a lot of
those types of statements thatsort of get at it, but yeah, so
like we have these baked inassumptions about how things
work.
We have these baked-inassumptions about how things

(23:22):
work and when we receiveinformation into this category,
we are interpreting it as suchand telling ourselves the story
of what's happening.
That's all firing inmilliseconds before we can even
yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
So it's like we talked about what a mental model
is.
We've talked about somemetaphors that get at this and
you're saying, yeah, but we havemental models for, like,
everyday life, pick the area,pick the topic and there's
probably some mental modelsabout what, some baked in
assumptions about how to takeaction when it comes to that,
and marriage is one example, andthat statement like happy wife,

(24:01):
happy life, captures a mentalmodel of how the relationship
works.
I saw something and this might,I don't know, but I saw
something on Facebook recentlywhen it comes to marriage and I
thought, oh, that's aninteresting mental model.
It's actually Rich Valotiscommented on it recently when it
comes to marriage, and Ithought, oh, that's an
interesting mental model.
It's actually Rich Valotiscommented on it recently.
But it's this picture Maybesome of you have seen it.

(24:22):
It's like a diagram of umbrellas.
So there's like this reallylarge umbrella at the top that
has Christ, and then there's alittle bit smaller umbrella
underneath that bigger umbrellathat says husband and then
underneath that umbrella sayswife and then underneath that

(24:44):
says kids and with the husbandumbrella it says husband and
then it says protect and providequote and then, with the wife,
it says care for children.
It says protect and providequote.
And then with the wife, it sayscare for children and manage
the home.
And that's a mental model ofmarriage that is rooted in a

(25:05):
particular way of seeing andreading and interpreting
scripture.
And I would submit to you a verypoor one.
Many scholars, scholars, haveargued and I think very
persuasively that the text thatthey're drawing on to build that
umbrella mental model, insteadof supporting this kind of
marital hierarchy, those textsare actually doing the exact

(25:27):
opposite.
They're subverting it andturning the entire thing upside
down.
Now, whatever you think aboutthat, if you're like, wow, mac,
that's jarring to me.
I actually like that diagram.
Okay, the point is just tonotice that's a mental model.
We can have a conversationabout how accurate it is or how

(25:47):
inaccurate it is, but the pointis is we're not talking about
what the Bible teaches andwhether you agree with it or not
.
We're talking about ourinterpretation of the Bible and
whether or not that's faithfulor not.
You get what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, and you're touching on the fact that
parenting is another area whereI think mental models come into
play and I would submit thatanyone who's a parent, I think
their mental model is probablyin a big way influenced by how
you know we were parented.
It could be that your parentswere really strict and now you
parent really strictly, or itmight be a reaction to that,
like maybe your parents werestrict and now you've swung

(26:25):
completely the other way.
But there could be lots ofother things how your friends
parent, how your communityparents, but we all have mental
models that we bring toparenting.
So, josiah, you mentioned, likesome phrases for marriage, some
phrases I could think of withparenting could be.
Like kids should be seen and notheard I know that was a common
one like, especially in earliergenerations.
Like the children's roles to bequiet and obedient, not

(26:47):
expressive.
I've heard this one a lot.
I just want to give themeverything I didn't have.
Right Like assumes that love isexpressed through providing
materially or emotionally inways that everything I didn't
have.
Right Like assumes that love isexpressed expressed through
providing materially oremotionally in ways that my
parents didn't.
It's my job to protect themfrom the world, like I have to
protect my kids.
Um, good parents havewell-behaved kids, like we could

(27:07):
go on.
But there's all sorts ofphrases I think we pick up on.
Or even sometimes you're justhanging out with another family
and you're like, oh, they dothat.
Hmm, I don't do that.
And you just start to noticethat we each have these mental
models that guide how weinteract with discipline, raise
our kids, spare the rod andspoil the child.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
So what happens in Christian circles is we actually
build mental models aroundverses because then they carry,
like a certain degree ofauthority.
We're often not aware of, likesome of the maybe missteps in
interpreting that verse thatwe're quoting in the first place
.
So I know mental models, entiremental models built around

(27:48):
parenting, almost entirely builton that verse.
Right, spare the rod and spoilthe child, justifying borderline
, physically abusive parenting,parenting styles, you know, in
the name of biblicalfaithfulness.
And of course we'd want toaffirm that, like what the verse
is saying.
Like you guys, a rod was just ametaphor for authority and

(28:09):
guidance.
It wasn't necessarily likephysical punishment.
And it is saying if you don'tprovide this, then maybe your
child would become unruly orspoiled.
So there is something that thisverse is affirming, but I'm
just again, I'm trying to namethere's a mental model here.
Think about the work that thatverse has done to create a

(28:29):
mental model around discipline.
That may or may not actually behelpful, right?

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, well, and I think, if we just camp here for
one more minute, theunderstanding how mental models
work it's.
It's how we're observing andhow we're structuring our lives
as as parents, but it's also howwe're interpreting our kids'
behavior.
So it's dictating like if you,um, let's just go with the old
school one.
Children are seen and not heard.

(28:56):
So, as a parent, what is thatimplying?
So now, my kid's behavior isfiltered through a mental model
or a schema in which I believethat kids are secondary to the
adults.
Yep, and so anytime they'redoing something that isn't being
in the background and sittingin their place is seen as bad.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yes, and then combine that with the mental model of
spare the rod and spoil thechild and boom.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
So yeah, and so now I'm interpreting my and not only
my role, but how the kid'sbehavior and what it needs to be
.
All of that is happening andall of that is happening and all
of that is firing and I'm notreally thinking about it much at
all.
It's like that kid needs awhooping to put them back in
their place.
Now, with a different mentalmodel, I can take the same
behavior.
And now sometimes the scriptgets flipped with parenting

(29:50):
where now I'm like at the mercyof my kids because their
emotional well, they're um.
Emotional wellbeing andhappiness is now my top priority
.
So now I'm interpreting everytime they're upset, I'm feeling
anxious and stressed and feelinglike, uh, I need to fix that
and or I'm, I'm a terribleparent and so I need to placate.

(30:10):
Yeah, right, so like all thisinterpretation is happening all
below the surface and it doesn't.
We don't really think about it,yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
And I like what you said, Katie, that like, hey, a
lot of times, part of the reasonwhy we're not aware of it is
because we inherited it.
And then part of what exposes.
Oh, I might have a mental modelaround that is seeing how some
other family operates.
You're like oh well, they have adifferent way of seeing or
relating to this task ofparenting.
So, yeah, if you're listeningto this, we could go all day

(30:40):
long around pick an area of lifefriendship, parenting, marriage
.
Another big one is leadership.
I mean this gains a lot ofattention in our society around
like, hey, what is goodleadership?
And there's all these littlelike pithy statements that
capture it.
Right, leaders eat last.

(31:00):
Give someone a fish, feed themfor a day, teach them to fish
feed them for a lifetime right?
There's all these little likepithy statements or phrases that
get at a mental model aroundwhat good leadership looks like.
One of the things we've done inthis podcast is sort of
deconstructed, or talked a lotabout, the CEO mental model of

(31:21):
leadership that the church hasunfortunately embraced,
particularly in bigger, largermegachurch attractional churches
.
It's like we've borrowed amental model and imported it
into the church community andit's not entirely bad.
It's not like we can't learnfrom what's happening in
corporate America.
I'm not saying that.

(31:41):
But, man, I used to serve undera pastor who would regularly
remind people I'm the CEO ofthis church.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I heard him say it too.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Right, and so there's an entire mental model around
this top-down power, centralizeddecision-making, control-based
delegation and so on, and we'vebuilt a case that that is
nowhere found in the NewTestament and actually supports
toxic leadership rather than adisciple-making community of
leaders right, yeah, and I'veexperienced people coming to

(32:12):
Crosspoint who I think carrythat mental model CEO church and
then they're maybe confusedabout why we do certain things
the way we do them.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Yeah, like there's people whoare attending and had that
mental model so ingrained intothem that now they're
interpreting your leadership, ormy leadership or yours, in a
way that's like less thanbecause, that's the model they
have for what a leader issupposed to be.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I have had multiple people, unrelated to each other,
tell me that I am not leading,I'm doing a poor job leading
because I'm not embodying thesort of CEO, mac-centric sort of
.
You know what I mean.
I'm not the face to the placeand that's rooted in a mental

(32:59):
model.
Now, the good news I can seethat, otherwise it'd be really
discouraging and debilitatingand disorienting.
But I go oh, they have a mentalmodel around leadership and
I've thought really hard aboutmy mental model around
leadership and deep convictionsabout how we want to do things,
not just differently but, Ithink, more biblically and leads
to a healthier church culture.

(33:20):
Right, but that's anotherexample.
I mean, if you're listening tothis conversation, it's going
here's what mental models areand we have them for every area
of life, everything, everything.
So I have a question and we'vetouched on it, but it's worth
talking about these this alittle bit more is where do
these mental models come from?
How do we absorb them?

(33:42):
How are they created, how do wedownload them?
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Well, the first and foremost, they come from our
first formation.
So think of your family oforigin.
Your family of origin hadvalues and systems and ways of
thinking and their own mentalmodels, and the way we were
raised is like an imprint on us.
It imprints on us a certain wayof seeing the world again.

(34:08):
Think of things like parentingthe way your parents parented,
or their parents parented them.
Marriage think about how yourparents parented or their
parents parented them.
Marriage Think about how yourparents behaved in their
marriage and how much thatimprints on your view of what a
good marriage is supposed tolook like.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Money how money is handled.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Saving for the future as opposed to like blowing it
now, and the amount of worry andstress around money and all
those things Food and nutrition,the way that your parents even
fed you, how that like imprintsonto you a way of seeing how I'm
supposed to provide for my kidsum health and wellness, how
much they took care of like sortof um physical health.
Uh, all those things wereimprinted on you and I faith

(34:53):
politics.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
I mean on and on, and on.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Absolutely everything that you were, you experienced
in your childhood, was absorbedand imprinted onto you.
And, man, you could go on andon about all the ways in which,
when you wake up to it, yourealize, oh, some of that was
really good, some of that.
It's not something I want torepeat, but it takes a way of
like sort of waking up to it.

(35:15):
So, anyway, the first formation, your family of origin, is the
primary place where these mentalmodels are formed at a very
young age.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I think a really fun way to get at this and we ended
up in this space a couple weeksago is to just think about some
of the mottos or like phrasesthat your family, uh, used
growing up.
Maybe, just like we weretalking about this a couple
weeks ago, josiah and yourgrandma, or something, used to
say don't be a sausage.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
I've never heard that before.
Yeah, she would tell.
She would especially like ifsomeone was talking like an
idiot.
She would say quit talking likea sausage.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
We were like what we don't know what it meant, but
then when?

Speaker 2 (35:58):
I mentioned it in a meeting.
You guys were all like what?

Speaker 1 (36:02):
But that's like captures a mental model, right,
and that got me thinking like ohwell, what were some of like
the common phrases that I heardgrowing up that were sort of on
repeat things like that?
And I noticed that a lot of onrepeat things like that, and I
noticed that a lot of them werearound work ethic, particularly
from my dad.
He had this little thing thathe'd say hey, you never fail

(36:25):
until you stop trying.
And in some ways that's good,Like never stop, Don't give up,
Always keep trying.
But, man, I'll also tell youthere's a lot of times where it
would have been smarter to likeI have to know when the limit is
, or know when to like nope,this isn't worth the effort.
There's some wisdom in that too.

(36:46):
I remember another one he usedto say to me is do today what
others don't do, so you can dotomorrow what they can't do.
It was kind of like hey, youwork harder than everybody else
because then you're going toreach this level that other
people won't be able to reach.
All these little models aroundhard work, Mac, always be the
first one on the ice and thelast one off, Just little things

(37:07):
like that.
But these get at then, when Igo back and sort of look at or
think about those phrases that Idownloaded and the message they
communicate, I'm like, ah,there's a mental model baked
into these statements that I wasgiven and some of it's good and

(37:28):
some of it has some shadows toit.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
That's a good way to put it.
Yeah, that is funny.
Yeah, and I think closelyrelated to first formation would
be, I would just say, personalexperience.
Like personal experience, yes,in your childhood and then
beyond that, we're constantlyhaving interactions,
relationships, experiences thatshape what we believe, what we
think and I think, result in usforming impressions about how

(37:55):
the world works and how weshould respond to it.
So one example might be if youopen up to someone in a really
vulnerable way and they betrayedyour trust, you might develop a
mental model that you can'tcount on people.
That's a belief that couldstick with you Even if you never
say it out loud.
It will shape how you relate toothers.
Josiah, you mentioned how yourparents related to money.
Like, let's say, money wasreally tight growing up, you

(38:17):
might carry an internal rulelike security is everything or I
always have to have a backupplan, and that can affect how
you view work, risk-taking,generosity, god's provision.
So I think we just accumulatethese experiences and they
create these assumptions, thesegeneralizations, these
frameworks that then determinehow we interact going forward

(38:42):
and that can affect how you viewwork, generosity, risk-taking,
how you view God's provision foryour life.
So I think it's just worthsaying, like our brains are
constantly making meaning.
When something happens, whetherit's good, whether it's bad, we
don't just feel it, we assignmeaning to it, and then that
meaning becomes part of ourmental model.
So it becomes a lens, kind of,through which we see the world

(39:04):
and then determines how weinteract, going forward.
And those keep accumulating,right Like every time you get a
new interaction, it eitherreinforces that mental model or
changes it a little bit.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
And it just continues , I think, to build and develop.
Yeah, and I think underneaththat there's a there's the
question of how do we weight ourexperience?
How do we weight it, like, interms of shaping our perspective
of reality?
So, not to get too abstract,but I just think back to, like
the enlightenment, where therational brain, like your brain,
rationalism, was thepredominant way of knowing what
was true.
You know what I mean.
Now there were some empiricistsat that time who did put some

(39:42):
degree of value on experience,but by and large it was like,
hey, your ability to thinkthings through is what
determines what's true, and thatwas, like, I guess, an artifact
of modernity.
Well, now we're living in apostmodern culture and it seems
to me that that's, in manyrespects, that's good.

(40:02):
Like it blew up this idea thatwe can just reason our way to
reality in a sort of objectiveway.
None of us are completelyobjective, as we've already
named, we all have lenses.
Objective, as we've alreadynamed, we all have lenses.
But it seems to me that in ourculture and maybe you've
encountered this with peopleyou're interacting with in your
daily life, if you're a listenerit seems to me that the

(40:27):
pendulum has almost swung toofar, and what I mean by that is
that I encounter people sort ofelevate their experience above
everything else you know what Imean?
As if it can't be true if Ihaven't experienced it Right.
And I want to name the obviousthat that's an incredibly
limiting and flawed mental modelabout how we know what we know,
because of the simple reasonthat you'll never experience
everything.

(40:48):
That's true.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, postmodern sentiment would imply that
reality is whatever I perceive.
So it's like the opposite endof the spectrum of like there is
no objective reality or truth.
It's only what I experience andyours is different than mine I
think you can see there's someproblems with that than mine.

(41:16):
You know, I think you can seesome.
There's some problems with that, um, but like with a pendulum
swing, so far that, like youknow and I don't think that
we're trying to name that thereis no objective reality, right,
we're just naming our ownlimitations to have access to it
.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yes, and Katie, you're saying hey, one of the
ways our mental models areformed is by our experience.
And underneath that I'm sayingand how do we weight it?
How do we weight thatexperience?
And that's part of sort of likeunpacking our mental model.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Because the experience is true, it did
happen.
There is also truth and realityapart from that, and so how do
you weight how much meaning ithas towards my interpretation of
reality?

Speaker 1 (41:53):
That's right.
So, first formation, experienceshapes our mental models.
Another big one, I just think,is education.
I mean, man, I'll just behonest, I did my undergrad at
Bethel University in St Paul,minnesota and that had a huge
impact on my mental models.
I studied biblical, I was abiblical studies and theology

(42:16):
major and so in a lot of ways, Idid a lot of study of history
and philosophy and, like, mydegree was basically in mental
models.
In a lot of ways it's likehere's how people have been
thinking and understandingthings throughout the history of
the world and how do weintegrate that within a biblical
framework and a Christianworldview?

(42:37):
Right, yeah.
And I was blessed to have somereally incredible, I think,
professors who had done a lot ofwork creating healthy mental
models and ways of understanding, and I'm in their debt for that
.
But I imagine, if you thinkabout your own life, who are the
teachers?
What were the classes?

(42:58):
Who are the professors you had,maybe in high school or college
, or Katie at law school that,like, had a big impact on you,
that shaped the way you thinkand see the world.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah, so true.
One more I would name is justsocial and cultural influences.
You know that I would say thisis a little more like we've
named that.
You have this imprint of offirst formation in the family
you grew up in you and theyshape how you see the world and

(43:35):
how you categorize things aroundyou.
You have the ways that werevery directly imparted to you
through education, verypurposefully saying you should
think this way.
The social and culturalinfluence I feel like has this
sort of tertiary way ofinfluencing us without us
realizing it, way of influencingus without us realizing it

(43:56):
Right.
So like, if I'm following, evenif I'm not following someone on
social media let's just namethat I scroll through things on
Instagram.
I'm not even following thisperson, but the way that they're
portraying something, or like acomedian, a little clip of a
comedian that's like got thisclever way of seeing something
and you're like, oh, I didn'tthink about it that way, you

(44:17):
start to like absorb some ofthose ways of seeing the world
and I just think it has a littlemore of the social and cultural
influences through politics andsocietal sentiment of how you
perceive people are feelingabout certain current events.
It has like a more.

(44:37):
It's more of like you're likeslowly absorbing it rather than
some of the other ways that hasjust been like very directly
given to you.
I don't know if that makessense, but especially in
politics, you have one politicalleader that you sense like has
their head on straight, and soyou kind of follow them in a way

(44:58):
, and now you find yourself verymuch absorbing the way they see
everything now, rather thanjust being able to dissect.
Hey, I agree with them aboutthis issue.
Now it's like everything theysay now is influencing me and
how I see the world.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Yes, we can do a whole episode on mental models.
Oh yeah, you could be.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
We could just interview you, you know.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
I suppose, yeah, but that was can come into for that.
Yeah, that'd be really fun.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Um, yeah, we are influenced.
Our mental models areinfluenced by the culture we
live in and the algorithms,right, just as, katie, you were
saying, hey, when you hang outwith another family, you might
notice different mental modelsat play.
This is also what happens whenyou travel internationally or to
a different country.
You're like, all of a sudden itexposes some of the things we

(45:52):
don't see in our own culturethat are actually shaping us and
influencing us, right?
It's like oh, there's somedifferences here.
But yeah, I mean, just thinkabout the societal values that
have momentum right now and,whether you agree with those or
not, they're actually shapingyour mental models, because
you're either getting swept upin the current of those or

(46:15):
you're reacting against them.
You know what I mean, likeeither way.
And so, yeah, we have to bemindful of here's, the culture
we're swimming in, and how isthat influencing the way I see
and take action in the world?
You know, and when it comes tomental models, in a lot of ways
this is what's been superdisorienting, I think, for the

(46:35):
evangelical church this wholeidea of deconstruction.
Right, I don't know if you, Imean, I've written about it, I
think we've mentioned it a fewtimes, but this word,
deconstruction, is prettypopular.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Oh, I'm hearing a lot .
It's kind of a buzzword.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
But it seems to me that deconstruction is simply
the forming and reforming of ourmental models and by
questioning the assumptions andmaybe exposing the hidden
frameworks and opening ways fornew understanding, like that's,
deconstruction at its heart isquestioning mental models.

(47:14):
Deconstruction at its heart isquestioning mental models and it
involves disrupting potentiallyan old mental model, or
strengthening it if you find itto be true and solid.
But I think part of what'shappening, you guys, is you've
got a number of people who grewup in an evangelical environment
and, I would say, weren't justgiven a set of mental models,

(47:35):
but an entire paradigm.
So a paradigm is like a broaderframework that includes the
mental models underneath it.
So there was an entireevangelical paradigm that gave
them mental models about allthese different areas of life
marriage, parenting, datingright, theological convictions,
et cetera and what's happeningis is that, as, as those who

(47:56):
grew up in evangelical homes aregetting some space apart from
those environments, they moveout of their house or whatever,
they're beginning to go.
Whoa, what about these mentalmodels that I was given?
Are they true and what kind ofwork are they doing?
Whether it's the CEO model ofleadership that our church had

(48:18):
or this idea that bigger isbetter, us versus them, dynamics
that tend to be common inevangelical environments purity
culture, theological convictionsaround biblical inerrancy or
human sexuality or atonementtheory or the afterlife.
You know what I mean.
Heaven, hell, eternal conscioustorment All these things are
now.
People are going well, time out, time out.

(48:40):
I actually want to examine thisto see and decide whether I
think this is true.
And many people are going, no,there's something wrong here.
I don't agree with this mentalmodel and in fact, this mental
model that is sort ofunquestioned in many evangelical
environments is actuallyhurtful and harmful in many

(49:01):
respects.
Here's the bad work.
Here's the shadow side ofpurity culture, here's the
shadow side of bigger is better,here's the.
You get what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Yeah, no, it's really interesting that, as I'm seeing
some of these four ways thatwe're naming where mental models
come from, or four of them is Igot all of those from my church
growing up, like my experiencewith modern religion in general,
all four of those categoriesthe cultural influence,

(49:34):
education, personal experiences,first formation all happen
within the church.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
So the problem with deconstruction I would name, and
I'm playing more devil'sadvocate.
I think, in this moment.
But the problem is it is oftenframed in a way that I have to
choose all or nothing.
And what I hear you and I wouldpush back against that because
I think that's whydeconstruction gets a bad rap,

(50:03):
because often people assume ormaybe that's actually their
lived experience that they didhave to choose all or nothing.
You either believe all of whatyou've been taught or you have
to reject faith and we create apicture that you have to that.
If, if your paradigm, the wayyou view the world, is a giant

(50:25):
collection of all of our mentalmodels, um, and you tell me that
, in order for me to rethink howI view the world, this one
mental model and this one tinylittle mental model, that I have
to give up my end, like theentire paradigm, the entire
paradigm, in order to do so.
Like that isn't very fair tothe person and it also creates

(50:47):
it just creates a lot ofproblems.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just funny side note, as you
were talking, mac, and I couldbe totally wrong on this, but it
occurs to me thatevangelicalism became really
popular what 40, 50-ish yearsago because people were
deconstructing more of themainline denominations.
Like, I feel like I don't knowa lot of people more in my

(51:08):
parents' generation.
I know kind of deconstructedCatholicism or Lutheranism or
some of the more mainline.
Then evangelicalism got reallybig and popular and now, what do
you know?
We're kind of deconstructingevangelicalism.
But I think, yeah, I thinkyou're right, I think
deconstructing if we're going tojust talk about deconstructing
is like asking really hardquestions about faith.
I think that's a good thing, butwe don't want to stop there.

(51:29):
We want to continue to moveforward and reconstruct a faith
that holds up in real life.
And I would submit that thattype of reconstructed faith
needs to be centered on Jesusand not just like ideas about
Jesus, but the way he lived, thethings he cared about, the
convictions that guided hisactions.
And this is why we exist as achurch right To be like Jesus

(51:52):
and to live like Jesus.
So in this series we want totalk about what were Jesus's
mental models, what were thetruths that shaped, how he loved
people, how he talked to Godthe Father, how he responded to
injustice, how he navigatedpower and pain.
And if you are listening andyou go to Crosspoint especially
if you've been through aleadership intensive, these
shouldn't be new to you.

(52:12):
But these are some of the coreconvictions that we're going to
discuss in the series.
We want to kind of previewthose for you before we move
forward.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, I think you've named, I think, a huge part of
what motivates us as a church,and that is when we think about
deconstruction, for instance.
There's a lot of different wayspeople are relating to that,
this idea of questioning orgetting underneath our mental
models.
Some people double down ontheir mental model that's being

(52:44):
critiqued and just insist thatit's true and that if you're
questioning it there's a problemwith you.
That's one response.
Another response is to maybeeven antagonistically attack all
these mental models you weregiven and deconstruct and
ultimately deconvert.
We hold the conviction as achurch and this is what I think

(53:07):
you're getting at that this is anormal part of a person's faith
journey.
Just like Apple comes out witha new software update, we always
need to be doing softwareupdates when it comes to our
mental models around followingJesus.
This was actually baked intothe Reformation.
They had this motto of alwaysreforming.
This is part of what it means.
To always be reforming is to beexamining the lenses through

(53:30):
which we're looking, theinterpretations that we're
holding to and questioning theiraccuracy, not for the sake of
just getting rid of faith, butactually to seek a greater faith
.
It's faith seekingunderstanding, and the way we do
that is, by keeping our eyesfixed on Jesus.
And when I look at Jesus, Inoticed that in the gospels he's

(53:51):
constantly disrupting people'smental models.
Right, we talk about all thosedifferent areas of life.
You know the way Jesus viewedGod.
It was very clear.
He's not a distant deity orjust some transcendent judge,
he's an intimate father.
The way he viewed people, mygoodness, every person he treats

(54:12):
as an image bearer, not sort ofsomeone to be stereotyped.
You know what I mean.
Like he was disrupting thecommon ways people saw those who
are disabled, those who werepoor, those who are marginalized
.
That's what he was traffickingin.
He was providing differentmental models that disrupted
people's categories.
He disrupted mental modelsaround power.

(54:35):
Instead of top down, hereversed it, he inverted it.
Right, he turned almost everyarea of life upside down based
on mental models that were howwould I say this Contrary to the
kingdom of God.
And so part of following Jesusis that we need to not only have

(54:59):
his mental models but, to acertain degree, as a church
community, be disrupting mentalmodels that subvert the kingdom.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
And, in some cases, are mental models that come
under the guise of religion.
Yes, which is the same thingthat happened in Jesus's day.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Yes, yeah, it's really interesting, as you're
saying, that I was reminded inGenesis 3, where the story of
creation and after the fall, godasks Adam who told you you were
naked?
No other influence towards themental models.

(55:33):
God saw the brokenness and knewthat underneath it was an
interpretation of how the worldworks.
Who told you?
Who told you you were naked?
He's very he's, he's gettingunderneath, like how did you get
this mental model?
Yeah, where'd you get this from?
Yeah, because I didn't give itto you.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Yeah, anyway, sorry, just yeah, so all so, anyway,
sorry, just yeah.
So all that to say.
Maybe we will at some point doan entire series on
deconstruction and maybe pick atsome of these areas, whether
it's women in ministry orwhatever.
But what you're hearing us sayis that this is actually part of
faith.
It can be healthy.
It can be engaged in a healthyway.
It also can be engaged in anunhealthy way.

(56:12):
We're saying it can be done ina healthy way by keeping your
eyes fixed on Jesus and whateverarea you're deconstructing
whether that's parenting, family, theological convictions fixing
your eyes on Jesus is the bestway to do that.
Now in this series we can'tunpack the entire paradigm of

(56:35):
Jesus's mental models.
We're sort of picking an areaof Jesus's mental models related
to missional discipleship.
How did Jesus make and multiplydisciples who live on mission
in the world?
So we're not going to betalking about, for instance, his
mental models around family oreconomics or power.

(56:56):
Those are separate.
What we're going to be talkingabout is like, what were the
mental models that Jesus hadrelated to multiplying disciples
that live on mission in theworld?

Speaker 3 (57:08):
Which will inform those other areas that you
mentioned Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Absolutely, but like as a starting point so maybe
let's give our listeners just alittle bit of a teaser of hey in
this series that these are someof the mental models.
We've kind of tried to come upwith some pithy statements to go
.
This captures one of Jesus'mental models around missional
discipleship.
Let's give them a taste ofwhere we're headed.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Yeah, so we're going to be doing an episode on each
one of these statements, and sowe're just going to share what
they are here in this space, soyou can sort of look forward to
one.
The first episode is going tobe that God's presence precedes
our participation.
Essentially, god goes first.
We don't carry God with us.
God is already doing thingsbefore we get there.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
We're also going to do an episode on the fact that
God bends to meet us where weare.
There's a sense in which Godmeets us in our reality, but he
also meets us in reality, likehe wants to pull us into his
reality.
So we're going to talk aboutthat.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
We'll do an episode on the fact that God is like
Jesus.
So if you want to know what Godis like, we look at Jesus Like
Jesus was God in the flesh.
He says I and the Father areone.
So when we see who Jesus caredabout and how he lived, we're
seeing the truest picture of Godthat's available to us.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
Another one will be that God's kingdom looks like
Jesus's ministry.
That joining God in the worldinvolves living like Jesus.
That there's a significance tothe way Jesus lived his life and
invites us into his kingdom ina way that Jesus joined it.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
We're gonna do an episode on the reality that God
is capable, and not just capable, but good and trustworthy, and
so trust leads and our effortalways follows.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
God cares about the who and not just the do.
This is the idea that who youare matters more than what you
do.
That, in God's eyes, ouridentity isn't earned by what we
accomplish.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeah, another one will be God wants us to know him
, not just serve him.
That mission and what we do forGod is the overflow of
communion with God, that is, wedon't have to do things apart
from him or just for him, but weget to know him intimately as
we do.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, and then we're gonna try to close out the
series by talking about how Godleads and guides through the
Holy Spirit.
I mean, jesus lived aspirit-filled life, and
especially in this day and agewhere a lot is changing, agility
becomes the new stability.
Being agile in the Holy Spirit,under the Holy Spirit's
leadership and guidance, isreally important.
So that's a little bit of wherewe're headed.
I hope you can sleep at night.

(59:51):
I know you probably can'tcontain your excitement.
One of the things I want to dobefore we give some practices to
close this episode aroundmental models is I feel the need
to give some credit wherecredit is due, and what I mean
by that is look, I don't sayvery many things that are
original to me, if any at all.
I am a vivacious reader, so I'malways reading and absorbing

(01:00:15):
ideas and then figuring out howto package them myself, and you
know what.
I mean Like this is what leadersdo, they're, they're, they're,
they're being shaped by otherpeople and um, and so I listen
to podcasts, I read books,there's, there's people that I'm
indebted to, that have investedin me in a really deep way and
help shape some of these coreconvictions, to help see these
mental models and package them.

(01:00:35):
So I just want to mention maybesome acknowledgements along the
way.
Does that make sense?
And if you guys have them too,you can do that, because I know
you're going to be very muchcontributing to this.
But I'm very indebted to myprofessors in college, like
super indebted.
My professors at BethelUniversity were incredible.
They were very Jesus-centeredand influenced me greatly and in

(01:00:59):
fact, when you hear me say Godis like Jesus, that is straight
up from that season in my lifeand the influence there, deeply
influenced by a guy named PaulEddy and a guy named Jim Bilby.
One of my professors was GregBoyd, who literally wrote a book
recently called God is LikeJesus.
So when you hear that, it's notnew, it's something that's been
said for the last 2000 years indifferent ways by theologians.

(01:01:20):
But you need to know that's notme saying it.
It's like I'm indebted topeople.
Another area that we're drawingon is missional theology and I
have a great friend some of youknow him named Michael Bender,
and he's worked with our staff,kind of um, throughout his PhD
program and throughout his PhDprogram I was constantly for
about 10 years going, michael,tell me everything you're

(01:01:41):
reading, give me your syllabus,and so he was constantly giving
me.
Here's the textbook, here'swhat you know, craig Van Gelder,
alan Roxburgh Like I was almosttrying to take advantage of his
do my own PhD on the side, youknow, almost trying to take
advantage of it.
Do my own PhD on the side, youknow.
So Michael Bender has been ahuge influence, my friend Matt

(01:02:05):
Tebbe.
I went to grad school with Mattand he wrote a book called
Having the Mind of Christ withhis buddy, ben Sternke, who led
a retreat for us, a staffretreat for us.
So they're good friends andwhat's interesting is this is a
huge influence.
Before Having the Mind of Christ, which is an awesome book, each
chapter started as an articleand I was part of proofreading
those and that's what actually,I think in large part inspired

(01:02:26):
this series to go.
Hey, what are the?
How would we say?
These are the mental modelsJesus had when it came to
missional discipleship and sothey're a huge part of it.
And then my friends at theLeader's Journey have very much
influenced us as a staff throughtheir language of mental models
and so on.
So I just say that because alot of what we're going to be
talking about in the series.

(01:02:47):
I don't want people to get theimpression like, oh, this is
just.
Matt, katie and Josiah arebrilliant.
No, we're just doing the workof consolidating.
People are much smarter than us.
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah Well, some would say there's no such thing as
complete original thought,especially if we're in the realm
of Mental models.
If we're in the realm ofspeaking about mental models.
Like all of us, all of ourthoughts have been shaped and
influenced.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Yeah, and maybe I guess what I'm saying is not
only do I want to acknowledge it, but I'm also showing you the
work of.
I've examined where my mentalmodels have come from.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
You know what I?

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
mean All right.
Well, it is practice time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Practice podcast Never gets old.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
It never does.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Yeah, so practice.
The first practice we'dencourage is just to examine
your own prescription lenses.
Try to do the work of observingyour own mental models.
If you go to see a therapistand you're dealing with an issue
, they're going to do schematherapy, where they're going to

(01:03:52):
unpack okay, what's here's yourscheme Like, what is your schema
for this specific thing you'redealing with?
Let's unpack all of it.
What are where, all theinfluence of those things we're
going to, we're going to get itall out on the table and then we
can look and say, hey, we'regoing to, we're going to, we're
going to keep this one, we'renot going to do this one, all

(01:04:12):
that stuff.
Anyway, a good therapist isgoing to be able to do that with
you.
So, um, all that to say is itstarts by just being able to
name.
These are the lenses I'mwearing and and I think that
helps with um.
It's more helpful if you getspecific.
So not just in general myentire worldview.
Pick a specific thing.

(01:04:33):
What are some of the influencethat have shaped?
Let's just say, if you're aparent, what are the influences
that have shaped my parenting?
How did my parents parent?
And just like look at thelenses and say how am I viewing
this one area of my life?

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Yeah, in having the mind of Christ, matt and Ben
actually provides like a roadmapfor doing what you're
describing.
Josiah, examining your lensesand I looked it up and just kind
of jotted down some notes thefirst step was just to realize
that you're wearing glasses.
You're wearing glasses.
Second is what you'redescribing.
Notice the way those glassesare shaping your perception.

(01:05:08):
Thirdly, appreciate how otherpeople, past and present, see
the same world through differentglasses.
There might be like, hey, Ineed to actually engage with
other people and sort of likesee how they're viewing things,
maybe be curious about thelimitations of your perspective
and then experiment withdifferent glasses.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, have you ever, likegrabbed someone's glasses and

(01:05:30):
tried them on and been like whoa, you know, this is what.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Like that's part of it, yeah,and you touched on this.
But another practice would bejust dialoguing with people who
see things differently, andthere are many of them, and if
you don't feel like you haveanyone in your life that sees
things differently, then I wouldstrongly suggest you get some,
whether it be parenting wementioned faith politics, um,
really anything.

(01:05:54):
Because here's what happensFirst, it again helps you
recognize the mental models thatyou've been carrying, things
you just kind of assumed to betrue without ever really
examining them.
And then, second, it exposes usto other ways of seeing and to
living.
You don't have to agree witheverything, but it does help us
become more thoughtful, morecurious and more humble.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah for sure yeah, and obviously we're living in a
culture of echo chambers.

Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Right, and so I want to validate what you're saying,
that if you're in an echochamber with people who look
like you, think like you, actlike you, you need to figure out
how to break out of that Causethat is going to very much have
a limiting impact on your mentalmodels.
Yeah, and I want to say at thesame time every single person

(01:06:38):
you encounter, every singleperson, is someone you can
dialogue with to challenge yourmental models.
Like Katie, you see the world,we see a lot of things similarly
.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
We do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:53):
But you also see a lot of things differently than I
do, and that's a gift to me.
And same thing with you, josiah.
Like we see a lot of thingssimilarly because we've talked
about them a lot and the waythat you have experienced things
, like all the things we'venamed, help me, help me to see
things I otherwise wouldn't beable to see.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
So, literally every singleperson you're talking to is an

(01:07:15):
opportunity to get curious aboutlenses.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Yes, yeah, I remember real quick.
I remember when we were youngparents, we hung out with a
couple that was a little olderthan us they had kids that were
older and we were pretty greenand I just remember observing
some of the things in their homeand I liked some of it.
I didn't like other parts of it, but he said something to me

(01:07:40):
that always stuck out as likesomething.
Even just being exposed to itmade me think about something in
a different way and it becamesomething that I absorbed and I
just remember his kids werebeing crazy.
One of them came out completelybutt butt naked after after
swimming and he's just like okay, that's my kid.
Ladies and gentlemen, here theyare.

(01:08:00):
But I just remember he said hejust said like, he's just like I
.
I am not ever going to apologizefor my kids for just being a
kid and and I don't know it wasalong with spending time with
them and seeing the sentiment hehad towards parenting and the
way he loved his kids.
That is something I wanted toabsorb.

(01:08:23):
I'm not going to apologize formy kids because I can't manage
how I feel awkward becausethey're being a kid and it's
just an example of exposingyourself to other people that
maybe are different than youdifferent stages of life You're
going to be able to learn otherthings and expand your mental
models.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
I sense you have deconstructed the mental model
that kids should be seen, notheard.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Yes, yeah for sure, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Examine your own prescription lenses, practice
one, dialogue with people whosee things differently.
Break out of your echo chamber,but also recognize every single
person sees things differently.
And then, finally, I'm gonnaborrow from Kenrick Lamar.
I didn't even know who that wastill the halftime show this
year, but my kids apparentlylike him.
And then I started listening toa few songs.
So here's the final practiceSit down, be humble.

(01:09:15):
From a song, humble which is onmy podcast or my playlist right
now for working out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Maybe we can cut that into the episode.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Yeah, but here's the point is resist arrogance and
embrace humility, and thisstarts with recognizing a lot of
what we're talking about thatyou don't have unfiltered access
to reality, and that shouldcreate a sense of humility.
Um, there with our, with theleader's journey, we have this

(01:09:47):
little diagram we use, um, thatkind of highlights how much we
don't know.
So imagine a pie chart and thesmallest part of the pie is what
I know that I know.
So I know how to speak English.
I know you know some thingsabout this or that.
That's the smallest piece ofthe pie.

(01:10:09):
The next part of the pie, themedium sized piece of the pie,
is um pie.
The medium sized piece of thepie is um, what I know that I
don't know.
So, for instance, um, I know Idon't know um all that.
You know, katie, about um lawsand compliance.
I know that I don't know how tospeak Russian.

(01:10:31):
Um, you know what I mean Likeyou could do, I don't know how
to.
I don't know what the mean Likeyou could do, I don't know how
to.
I don't know what the folksknow at NASA or a brain surgeon.
And we're like there's all thesecategories.
If you really dialed it, Idon't know that.
Then the third category is, Idon't know what I don't know, I
don't even know that I don'tknow it, and that's the largest

(01:10:55):
part of the pie.
There's all kinds of stuff thatI don't know and I'm not even
aware that I don't know it.
So not only do our mentalmodels are suspect to being
inaccurate, right, whichrequires ongoing sort of
examination of those andstrengthening of them but just
to recognize, man, there's somuch I don't know, and this

(01:11:15):
should create a sense ofhumility and it should sort of
remove that arrogant certaintythat many people bring to
dialogue around so manydifferent topics.
Yeah, yeah.
It's all of it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Sit down, be humble.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
Sit down, be humble, All right.
Well, we've kind of previewedwhere we're going in the series.
Next time we're going to startwith the first one.
That God's activity alwaysprecedes our participation, so
we're going to unpack that alittle bit.
We encourage you to stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint
Community Church.
You can find out more about theshow and our church at
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If you have any questions,comments or have any suggestions
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