Praxis
Praxis
The Lenses We Live By
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.
Welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how to practice and embody the way of Jesus in our everyday lives. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Today we're kicking off a brand new series focused on a mental model for missional discipleship, a framework for living out our faith as disciples of Jesus in everyday life. Whether we're aware of it or not, we all have mental models, deep convictions and assumptions that shape how we see and take action in the world.
Speaker 1:Mental models are kind of like prescription lenses While often invisible when wearing them, they constantly and consistently shape the way we think, feel and act. So what were the mental models Jesus lived by? What conviction shaped how Jesus saw people, responded to needs, formed disciples and joined God's mission in the world? That's what this series is all about. Each week, we'll unpack a key conviction that shaped Jesus' way of life and explore how it can shape ours too, as we seek to be a community as disciples living on mission in the way of Jesus, to to be a community as disciples living on mission in the way of jesus. So today we're going to kick off this series by discussing what mental models are and why they matter. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2:Welcome everybody. My name is Josiah. I'm Katie. And I'm Mac. It's great to be here with you two again Got something to get us started today. For those of you who aren't aware, it is now summer break and for those of us with kids, that is probably more meaningful than others.
Speaker 1:Very jarring and disrupting.
Speaker 2:I'm curious what's something you're looking forward to and something you're not looking forward to for summer?
Speaker 1:We've got a couple of trips planned. Uh we try to go to uh. Josie's side of the family has a place on leech Lake in Northern Minnesota, so we try to go there, uh, at some point during the summer, and Josie has so many memories there growing up as a kid and of course, the two of us have been going there for around 20, over 20 years, and now our boys have memories, so that's always fun and it's a place that like even if I have to work a little bit, it's just such a great place to even get things done. You're just like it's awesome. And then we're taking a trip to Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia in August. So I'm looking forward to that. I'll be fun. Man, I think the annoyances is just having bodies at home all the time and the lack of structure that is present, you know.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:So for me, like specifically, I tend to have like really productive windows at home a few times a week where I'm like doing my sermon prep and like really like no distractions just plugging away, and that space, like my most productive space, is Gonzo in the summer. So it really requires some reconfiguring and creativity.
Speaker 2: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 yours continues. And there's all of these expectations around what are you going to do to entertain my summer? And then there's also this like complete lack of they don't have any structures in themselves to manage their own time and things. And so they depend on you for a lot and you're like I gotta keep, I gotta keep going. You just stopped everything you were doing, but I gotta keep moving.
Speaker 1:And the grocery bill skyrockets. Because they're bored, so they eat.
Speaker 2:It's just like oh man, that is like yeah, sorry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would also be the one thing that I'm not looking forward to. My brain feels so full just with. Our childcare schedule is literally different every week. Alex and I both work full-time, so we've got a mix of a family friend and different grandparents. Just every grandparents and just every single day throughout the summer is practically a different arrangement. So, um, and then there's baseball schedules and sports stuff and all of that. So I have a shared note. That's just like all these notes and my brain is kind of spinning. Who's picking them up? And all that the one thing I'm looking forward to. We don't have any trips in the summer, but my parents live on a Lake in town, they live on the bell and they have a paddleboard and oh, nice, and I'm really looking forward to getting out on the paddleboard.
Speaker 3:I love there's something about just going out when the lake is really like still and calm.
Speaker 1:I love it. There's something for me about sitting on the shore or on a pier and watching someone lose their balance on a paddleboard and totally biff it.
Speaker 3:I find hilarious. Would you like to come over while I paddleboard?
Speaker 1: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 funny moment. I'm like, oh, there they go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking forward to. I have a few weekends that have scheduled off little tiny trips here and there that I'm really looking forward to. They're in my sights as like, all right, just keep getting through and I'm gonna get some time away. But I think the thing I'm not looking forward to is, um, yeah, it's the unstructured time for for kids and and again, it's not like I love structure that much myself, but there's just so many expectations around um, how they'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:It becomes your problem. If they're annoying, it does.
Speaker 2:And then the snacks, like trying to manage, uh, when food's eaten, and all that kind of stuff. So it's, all just the basic annoyance things.
Speaker 1:Well, speaking of paddleboard wipeouts and summer shenanigans.
Speaker 3:Eating too many snacks.
Speaker 1:Hey, before we jump in, I want to just say this I met with someone yesterday who trains church planters. That was someone yesterday who trains church planters and he uses our podcast with the church planters.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Help them grow their emotional maturity and things like that. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just thought you know our goal isn't to become the next Mel Robbins, like the world's best podcast or whatever, but I do run into people who have found it helpful and enjoy listening in. And I just run into people who have found it helpful, um, and and enjoy listening in, and I just want to say, if that's you, would you please consider leaving a review that helps and or share an episode that you found helpful If you know someone who would benefit from it. That's like kind of. We do put a fair amount of hard work 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 to write a review. The other way you can like spread the word is by sharing an episode you found particularly helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love hearing those stories from people too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, cause I mean we're talking into microphones in a small room and you often don't know, like, what difference it's making. So it's always helpful when it's like, oh, I really connected with that or this helped me with this area of my life.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that's awesome, Okay. Well, today we're starting a new series where we'll explore the core convictions that guide how we follow Jesus in everyday life. So think of these as big ideas or truths that help us make sense of the world and shape the way we live, at our faith and our homes and in our workplaces and beyond. So another way to say this is that we're looking at mental models behind missional discipleship, the inner framework that helps us see and respond to life through the lens of Jesus. So let's dive into this First. I imagine that the phrase mental model might be new to some of our listeners, so let's flesh out what we mean by that term.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's relatively new to me. I was first introduced to the idea of a mental model with my work at the Leader's Journey they use that phrase quite a bit and they were introduced to that idea by a guy named Peterson Gay who wrote a book, a pretty well-known book, called the Fifth Discipline, the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, and I read it. So I grabbed the definition that he used in that book. As far as I know, he kind of coined that, but conceptually it's not new. But here's what he says Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.
Speaker 1:Very often we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior, end quote. So maybe to kind of summarize, a mental model is sort of like you could think of it as an internal map that helps us make sense of how the world works, a map that helps us make sense of how the world works. They include our mental models, include a set of assumptions or convictions that shape how we take action in the world and perhaps most significantly, something that Peterson Gage has said is that they operate outside of our conscious awareness. So we all have them, but we're often not aware of how they're influencing the way we see or behave or take action. So I thought it might be helpful.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's hard to just digest content like abstract, like an abstract definition. Metaphors often help us right. They can help us sort of digest or have a reference point for what we're talking about. So let's maybe discuss a few metaphors that get at what mental models are, and one that is used commonly is that they're sort of like wearing a pair of glasses which, by the way, you guys are coming up on this when you hit 40, all of a sudden your eyesight starts to change Maybe mid-40s for sure, but like I mean it's you know what.
Speaker 3:I mean, are you there, mac?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm starting to get there.
Speaker 3:Are you one of those people in the grocery store that's holding the Not quite?
Speaker 2:that bad. Can you hold it further away from me? I need to read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no not quite that bad. I a long time ago just started wearing readers because I read a lot and I noticed my eyes were getting tired. And then last time I went in for a checkup it was like, oh, the prescription changed a little bit. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is funny. I remember my dad telling me a very similar thing. He just said it was like one day he looked down to read something and it's blurry and he's like he's never worn glasses his whole life.
Speaker 1:It's just at one point.
Speaker 3:His eyes are just like I can't do this anymore. How?
Speaker 1:funny.
Speaker 3:Well, and you always blow me away, katie, because you were like on the cutting edge of LASIK surgery. Yes, right, yeah, I knew an advanced technology of LASIK. Yeah, so I had an experiment done with my eyes.
Speaker 1:I would never do that.
Speaker 3:But I got free LASIK out of it. That's awesome and I was like right out of college, I think. So I was like, yeah, sure sign me up.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a great idea.
Speaker 3:It was free and I can see so mental models.
Speaker 1:All that to say, mental models are kind of like wearing a pair of glasses. You go to the ophthalmologist and they do all these tests to determine what your unique eyesight is. The worst test, by the way, is when they blow like the fast, like you know what I mean Like yeah, you put your face on this thing and all of a sudden they pop you with some air.
Speaker 1:It's just the worst, anyway. So they kind of like do a bunch of tests to determine what your eyesight is, and then they obviously give you some corrective lenses so that you can see. But here's the thing is, when you're wearing glasses, you're often looking through the prescription lenses, but unless there's like a smudge, you know, or something inhibits like, you're often not even aware that you're wearing these prescription lenses anymore. You just become accustomed to wearing them. And yet those prescription lenses are determining or shaping how you literally see everything. You're looking through them, and one of the hard things about mental models is they're sort of like looking through a pair of prescription lenses. But it actually requires us taking our glasses off and looking at the glasses themselves Rather than just looking through the lenses. We actually have to take our glasses off and look at the prescription itself to determine whether it's accurate or not. That kind of gets at what we're talking about. What else, yeah, metaphors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that one. Another one I thought of was an operating system of a computer. Like if you think about a computer, you don't see it, but it has an operating system that kind of determines how everything works. And if you switch from, say, like a Mac to a PC, even basic things like opening a file or finding your settings can feel really frustrating and confusing because the system underneath it is different and I think our mental models in the same way determine how we kind of run in everyday life.
Speaker 3:And again, unless we recognize the model we're using, we might never realize that there's a different model. As I did, I used a PC for the first. What 25 years of my life? One day I used a Mac. I was like this is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have like liquid glass now, and it's the latest update.
Speaker 3:Really, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:I just saw like an article about like Mac releasing their newest deal and it's sort of like this way of it's like this image. It's going to be more translucent and I don't know. It's part of this update which also strikes me as interesting and we'll get to this.
Speaker 3:But, like I, like this metaphor of an operating system.
Speaker 1:Apple often release software updates and so there's also built into this mental model work and we're going to see how it. Like this constant, you need to be improving your mental models. Just as Apple constantly is giving software updates, your mental models need to consistently be updated and often those updates include bug fixes Like oh, it's fixing this bug. Some of your mental models have problems and those need to be fixed, and some aspects are on the right track, but they need to be elevated. I like that metaphor.
Speaker 2:It's not just seeing the world. In a certain way, it's giving us the capacity to interpret what's happening around us. So it's not just observing and seeing what's happening, it's also making meaning. And that's where the operating system needs the updating Right.
Speaker 1:And it's drawing attention to the fact that you are making meaning and you are doing some interpreting, and oftentimes we're not aware that we're doing those things. Another metaphor that is well-known and I've mentioned before in this podcast is this idea, it's this phrase the map is not the territory, and it was coined by a Polish guy. But it's this idea that when you're looking at a map, that's not the same thing as the actual topography that you're traveling on right, and we all have maps of how we make sense of the world, sort of internal maps but these maps are not the same thing as the world themselves. Those maps are interpretations, they're the meanings we've made along the way. One and I've mentioned this before, but I think it might be fun to review it.
Speaker 1:One I am not an art geek. I'm not going to a lot of art museums, or that's not really my jam, but at some point I came not 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 came across an artist that I that continually points to this dynamic in many different uh, uh paintings, and it's a guy named, uh, renee Magritte. I've mentioned him before. Um, if you Googled Renee Magritte, you would probably recognize some of his paintings. His most famous one is a guy in a top hat with an apple in front of his face and, as I mentioned, I think, before, the whole, uh, thomas crown affair, that movie, that end scene is sort of like inspired by magrete.
Speaker 1:But, um, I've mentioned two paintings before, but I want to remind you of them. So I printed off, you guys, the two paintings I want to reference so that you can see them while I'm talking about them. If you're listening to this and in a position to google these images, I'd encourage you to do so. Obviously, don't do it if you're driving. But the first one is called the human condition, okay, and when you look at it you'll notice there's a painting. That's a painting where there's an easel placed inside the room just in front of the window, and it's really interesting because on the easel it's an unframed painting of the landscape that seems to be in every detail mapping what's outside, on the actual landscape outside the window.
Speaker 1:In fact, when I first saw this painting, I didn't even notice the easel at all, I just thought it was just like a picture of what uh, of a room looking outside the window, um, but when you look more carefully, that's when you'll notice the painting on the easel and it's representing that landscape outside. And the point is how we see reality. Right, our seeing is like what's on the easel? That's our mental model. But what's on the easel isn't the actual landscape out on the countryside.
Speaker 2:No, and in the painting it's actually blocking your view from seeing the actual landscape.
Speaker 1:Yes, the painting is, even though the painting is.
Speaker 2:Even though the painting is meant to depict what's happening outside, the painting is blocking your view from what's actually happening.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. The point is that our understanding, our comprehension of reality is that easel, what's on the easel? Not the same as reality itself. And then, of course, I have this one in my office. You've seen it before. It's known as the treachery of images and it's a simple painting of a tobacco pipe, just a standard pipe. But under it it says in French and I don't speak French, but it says this is not a pipe. And at first glance it's confusing. It's designed to be like what? Well, that's clearly a pipe, but the point is it's not a pipe, it's a picture of a pipe.
Speaker 1:And once again, this sort of illuminates the distinction between reality and what we perceive reality to be. They aren't the same. So the point is, when we're sort of entering this conversation, we have to acknowledge and this can be hard work, just to acknowledge that we all have a way of seeing the world, and the way we see and the way we make meaning and the maps we have are not the same as reality itself. Our understanding is not synonymous with what's true. Yes, right, and this is hard for some people, because we think, we like to think I have unfiltered access to objective reality or objective truth, but none of us actually have that, and that doesn't mean we can't know what's true. It just means our way of knowing isn't unfiltered. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. No one has just what's worth repeating. No one has access to reality without interpreting it first.
Speaker 1:Yes, and this should soften our certainty. It should soften our sense of certainty and it really shouldn't be that hard to convince anybody of. You're not omniscient, you don't have undiluted, unfiltered or exhaustive access to reality Just none of us do and I think acknowledging this should just soften our certainty and increase our humility.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think I think that's true and it is worth noting that, um, I think a lot of us do, and myself included. We operate with this, these mental models, but we don't stop to ask like where did this come from, or is this really true, or what is my mental model? I think that's what we're trying to do today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to be. We're going to be talking a lot about that. We could do probably a whole nother podcast series on how to identify the mental models you have, how you can change the meaning you're making but, and how to talk about that when you're in dialogue with other people and you realize, wow, we're all filtering. Think about the gospels for a moment. There's a reason why there's four gospel accounts. They were all seeing the same thing, but have their own unique lens of as they witnessed it.
Speaker 1:And so you end up with four unique accounts of the gospel, of the story of Jesus. And so what happens? If we're in a room, the three of us even, and we see something. We all have probably a slightly unique way of viewing that. So what does it look like to begin to dialogue together about that? You need language to say hey, from where I sit, this is what I see. Oh, josiah, what do you see from where you sit? Help me see what I'm missing. You know what I mean. And only as we include more perspective.
Speaker 2:In that way do we get a fuller picture of what's happening.
Speaker 1:That's part of the reason why just you and your Bible isn't good enough. You actually need a community of people to interpret scripture with increasing faithfulness, because otherwise you're just going to be continually misreading things in light of your own ignorance or your misguided mental models. Okay, so let's look at some examples.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one more way of getting at this is the term schema. So, in psychology, schemas serve as like buckets for collecting information. Your brain just doesn't receive everything in a blank slate way. It's categorizing and interpreting information all the time. So they call these different buckets for processing things schemas. And it's important to note that we're not just sorting the information. It's not like a filing system where it's just like oh, this is where this information goes, is where this information goes. Some of that is true, but the term schema is getting at that subconsciously. These schemas are in charge of interpreting the data as well.
Speaker 2:So we're constantly telling ourselves stories about what's happening, based on the schemas for each individual category of thing happening in our lives. Um, it's, uh, it's constantly interpreting and bringing and making meaning of the world around 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 examples of some of these mental models? Um, cause you'll, you'll see that, even while we're completely unaware, these mental models are firing and they're working in the background, making meaning of everything that that's happening. So if we start, let's just look at one category marriage. Okay, so we have mental models for marriage. All of us do.
Speaker 2:If you're married, or even if you're not and you can get at this with you've heard the term happy wife, happy life. Or if mama ain't happy, nobody's happy. Although these are funny little statements that often a guy will say like, oh, whatever she wants, just keep her happy. Well, what's happening underneath that? There are baked in assumptions that if I keep her happy, then everything will be at peace. Like I am subconsciously interpreting events around me and managing things in such a way 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 that sort of get at it, but yeah, so like we have these baked in assumptions about how things work. We have these baked-in assumptions about how things work and when we receive information into this category, we are interpreting it as such and telling ourselves the story of what's happening. That's all firing in milliseconds before we can even yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's like we talked about what a mental model is. We've talked about some metaphors that get at this and you're saying, yeah, but we have mental models for, like, everyday life, pick the area, pick the topic and there's probably some mental models about what, some baked in assumptions about how to take action when it comes to that, and marriage is one example, and that statement like happy wife, happy life, captures a mental model of how the relationship works. I saw something and this might, I don't know, but I saw something on Facebook recently when it comes to marriage and I thought, oh, that's an interesting mental model. It's actually Rich Valotis commented on it recently when it comes to marriage, and I thought, oh, that's an interesting mental model. It's actually Rich Valotis commented on it recently. But it's this picture Maybe some of you have seen it.
Speaker 1:It's like a diagram of umbrellas. So there's like this really large umbrella at the top that has Christ, and then there's a little bit smaller umbrella underneath that bigger umbrella that says husband and then underneath that umbrella says wife and then underneath that says kids and with the husband umbrella it says husband and then it says protect and provide quote and then, with the wife, it says care for children. It says protect and provide quote. And then with the wife, it says care for children and manage the home. And that's a mental model of marriage that is rooted in a particular way of seeing and reading and interpreting scripture.
Speaker 1:And I would submit to you a very poor one. Many scholars, scholars, have argued and I think very persuasively that the text that they're drawing on to build that umbrella mental model, instead of supporting this kind of marital hierarchy, those texts are actually doing the exact opposite. They're subverting it and turning the entire thing upside down. Now, whatever you think about that, if you're like, wow, mac, that's jarring to me. I actually like that diagram. Okay, the point is just to notice that's a mental model. We can have a conversation about how accurate it is or how inaccurate it is, but the point is is we're not talking about what the Bible teaches and whether you agree with it or not. We're talking about our interpretation of the Bible and whether or not that's faithful or not. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're touching on the fact that parenting is another area where I think mental models come into play and I would submit that anyone who's a parent, I think their mental model is probably in a big way influenced by how you know we were parented. It could be that your parents were really strict and now you parent really strictly, or it might be a reaction to that, like maybe your parents were strict and now you've swung completely the other way. But there could be lots of other things how your friends parent, how your community parents, but we all have mental models that we bring to parenting. So, josiah, you mentioned, like some phrases for marriage, some phrases I could think of with parenting could be.
Speaker 3:Like kids should be seen and not heard I know that was a common one like, especially in earlier generations. Like the children's roles to be quiet and obedient, not expressive. I've heard this one a lot. I just want to give them everything I didn't have. Right Like assumes that love is expressed through providing materially or emotionally in ways that everything I didn't have. Right Like assumes that love is expressed expressed through providing materially or emotionally in ways that my parents didn't. It's my job to protect them from the world, like I have to protect my kids. Um, good parents have well-behaved kids, like we could go on. But there's all sorts of phrases I think we pick up on. Or even sometimes you're just hanging out with another family and you're like, oh, they do that. Hmm, I don't do that. And you just start to notice that we each have these mental models that guide how we interact with discipline, raise our kids, spare the rod and spoil the child.
Speaker 1:So what happens in Christian circles is we actually build mental models around verses because then they carry, like a certain degree of authority. We're often not aware of, like some of the maybe missteps in interpreting that verse that we're quoting in the first place.
Speaker 1:So I know mental models, entire mental models built around parenting, almost entirely built on that verse. Right, spare the rod and spoil the child, justifying borderline, physically abusive parenting, parenting styles, you know, in the name of biblical faithfulness. And of course we'd want to affirm that, like what the verse is saying. Like you guys, a rod was just a metaphor for authority and guidance. It wasn't necessarily like physical punishment. And it is saying if you don't provide this, then maybe your child would become unruly or spoiled. So there is something that this verse is affirming, but I'm just again, I'm trying to name there's a mental model here. Think about the work that that verse has done to create a mental model around discipline. That may or may not actually be helpful, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I think, if we just camp here for one more minute, the understanding how mental models work it's. It's how we're observing and how we're structuring our lives as as parents, but it's also how we'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. So, as a parent, what is that implying? So now, my kid's behavior is filtered through a mental model or a schema in which I believe that kids are secondary to the adults. Yep, and so anytime they're doing something that isn't being in the background and sitting in their place is seen as bad.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then combine that with the mental model of spare the rod and spoil the child and boom.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and so now I'm interpreting my and not only my role, but how the kid's behavior and what it needs to be. All of that is happening and all of that is happening and all of that is firing and I'm not really thinking about it much at all. It's like that kid needs a whooping to put them back in their place. Now, with a different mental model, I can take the same behavior. And now sometimes the script gets flipped with parenting where now I'm like at the mercy of my kids because their emotional well, they're um. Emotional wellbeing and happiness is now my top priority. So now I'm interpreting every time they're upset, I'm feeling anxious and stressed and feeling like, uh, I need to fix that and or I'm, I'm a terrible parent and so I need to placate. Yeah, right, so like all this interpretation is happening all below the surface and it doesn't. We don't really think about it, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I like what you said, Katie, that like, hey, a lot of times, part of the reason why we're not aware of it is because we inherited it. And then part of what exposes. Oh, I might have a mental model around that is seeing how some other family operates.
Speaker 1:You're like oh well, they have a different way of seeing or relating to this task of parenting. So, yeah, if you're listening to this, we could go all day long around pick an area of life friendship, parenting, marriage. Another big one is leadership. I mean this gains a lot of attention in our society around like, hey, what is good leadership? And there's all these little like pithy statements that capture it. Right, leaders eat last. Give someone a fish, feed them for a day, teach them to fish feed them for a lifetime right? There's all these little like pithy statements or phrases that get at a mental model around what good leadership looks like.
Speaker 1:One of the things we've done in this podcast is sort of deconstructed, or talked a lot about, the CEO mental model of leadership that the church has unfortunately embraced, particularly in bigger, larger megachurch attractional churches. It's like we've borrowed a mental model and imported it into the church community and it's not entirely bad. It's not like we can't learn from what's happening in corporate America. I'm not saying that. But, man, I used to serve under a pastor who would regularly remind people I'm the CEO of this church.
Speaker 2:I heard him say it too.
Speaker 1:Right, and so there's an entire mental model around this top-down power, centralized decision-making, control-based delegation and so on, and we've built a case that that is nowhere found in the New Testament and actually supports toxic leadership rather than a disciple-making community of leaders right, yeah, and I've experienced people coming to Crosspoint who I think carry that mental model CEO church and then they're maybe confused about why we do certain things the way we do them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, like there's people who are attending and had that mental model so ingrained into them that now they're interpreting your leadership, or my leadership or yours, in a way that's like less than because, that's the model they have for what a leader is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: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 the sort of CEO, mac-centric sort of. You know what I mean. I'm not the face to the place and that's rooted in a mental model. Now, the good news I can see that, otherwise it'd be really discouraging and debilitating and disorienting. But I go oh, they have a mental model around leadership and I've thought really hard about my mental model around leadership and deep convictions about how we want to do things, not just differently but, I think, more biblically and leads to a healthier church culture. Right, but that's another example. I mean, if you're listening to this conversation, it's going here's what mental models are and we have them for every area of life, everything, everything. So I have a question and we've touched on it, but it's worth talking about these this a little bit more is where do these mental models come from? How do we absorb them? How are they created, how do we download them? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, the first and foremost, they come from our first formation. So think of your family of origin. Your family of origin had values and systems and ways of thinking and their own mental models, and the way we were raised is like an imprint on us. It imprints on us a certain way of seeing the world again. Think of things like parenting the way your parents parented, or their parents parented them. Marriage think about how your parents parented or their parents parented them. Marriage Think about how your parents behaved in their marriage and how much that imprints on your view of what a good marriage is supposed to look like.
Speaker 1:Money how money is handled.
Speaker 2:Saving for the future as opposed to like blowing it now, and the amount of worry and stress around money and all those things Food and nutrition, the way that your parents even fed you, how that like imprints onto you a way of seeing how I'm supposed to provide for my kids um health and wellness, how much they took care of like sort of um physical health. Uh, all those things were imprinted on you and I faith politics.
Speaker 1:I mean on and on, and on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely everything that you were, you experienced in your childhood, was absorbed and imprinted onto you. And, man, you could go on and on about all the ways in which, when you wake up to it, you realize, oh, some of that was really good, some of that. It's not something I want to repeat, but it takes a way of like sort of waking up to it. So, anyway, the first formation, your family of origin, is the primary place where these mental models are formed at a very young age.
Speaker 1:I think a really fun way to get at this and we ended up in this space a couple weeks ago is to just think about some of the mottos or like phrases that your family, uh, used growing up. Maybe, just like we were talking about this a couple weeks ago, josiah and your grandma, or something, used to say don't be a sausage.
Speaker 2:I've never heard that before. Yeah, she would tell. She would especially like if someone was talking like an idiot. She would say quit talking like a sausage.
Speaker 3:We were like what we don't know what it meant, but then when?
Speaker 2:I mentioned it in a meeting. You guys were all like what?
Speaker 1:But that's like captures a mental model, right, and that got me thinking like oh well, what were some of like the common phrases that I heard growing up that were sort of on repeat things like that? And I noticed that a lot of on repeat things like that, and I noticed that a lot of them were around work ethic, particularly from my dad. He had this little thing that he'd say hey, you never fail 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 you there's a lot of times where it would have been smarter to like I 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.
Speaker 1:I remember another one he used to say to me is do today what others don't do, so you can do tomorrow what they can't do. It was kind of like hey, you work harder than everybody else because then you're going to reach this level that other people won't be able to reach. All these little models around hard work, Mac, always be the first one on the ice and the last one off, Just little things like that. But these get at then, when I go back and sort of look at or think about those phrases that I downloaded and the message they communicate, I'm like, ah, there's a mental model baked into these statements that I was given and some of it's good and some of it has some shadows to it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:That's a good way to put it. Yeah, that is funny. Yeah, and I think closely related to first formation would be, I would just say, personal experience. Like personal experience, yes, in your childhood and then beyond that, we're constantly having interactions, relationships, experiences that shape what we believe, what we think and I think, result in us forming impressions about how the world works and how we should respond to it. So one example might be if you open up to someone in a really vulnerable way and they betrayed your trust, you might develop a mental model that you can't count on people. That's a belief that could stick with you Even if you never say it out loud. It will shape how you relate to others.
Speaker 3:Josiah, you mentioned how your parents related to money. Like, let's say, money was really tight growing up, you might carry an internal rule like security is everything or I always have to have a backup plan, and that can affect how you view work, risk-taking, generosity, god's provision. So I think we just accumulate these experiences and they create these assumptions, these generalizations, these frameworks that then determine how we interact going forward and that can affect how you view work, generosity, risk-taking, how you view God's provision for your life. So I think it's just worth saying, like our brains are constantly making meaning. When something happens, whether it's good, whether it's bad, we don't just feel it, we assign meaning to it, and then that meaning becomes part of our mental model. So it becomes a lens, kind of, through which we see the world and then determines how we interact, going forward. And those keep accumulating, right Like every time you get a new interaction, it either reinforces that mental model or changes it a little bit.
Speaker 1:And it just continues, I think, to build and develop. Yeah, and I think underneath that there's a there's the question of how do we weight our experience? How do we weight it, like, in terms of shaping our perspective of reality? So, not to get too abstract, but I just think back to, like the enlightenment, where the rational brain, like your brain, rationalism, was the predominant way of knowing what was true. You know what I mean. Now there were some empiricists at that time who did put some degree of value on experience, but by and large it was like, hey, your ability to think things through is what determines what's true, and that was, like, I guess, an artifact of modernity.
Speaker 1:Well, now we're living in a postmodern culture and it seems to me that that's, in many respects, that's good. Like it blew up this idea that we can just reason our way to reality in a sort of objective way. None of us are completely objective, as we've already named, we all have lenses. Objective, as we've already named, we all have lenses. But it seems to me that in our culture and maybe you've encountered this with people you're interacting with in your daily life, if you're a listener it seems to me that the pendulum has almost swung too far, and what I mean by that is that I encounter people sort of elevate their experience above everything else you know what I mean? As if it can't be true if I haven't experienced it Right. And I want to name the obvious that that's an incredibly limiting and flawed mental model about how we know what we know, because of the simple reason that you'll never experience everything. That's true. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, postmodern sentiment would imply that reality is whatever I perceive. So it's like the opposite end of the spectrum of like there is no objective reality or truth.
Speaker 2:It's only what I experience and yours is different than mine I think you can see there's some problems with that than mine. You know, I think you can see some. There's some problems with that, um, but like with a pendulum swing, so far that, like you know and I don't think that we're trying to name that there is no objective reality, right, we're just naming our own limitations to have access to it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and Katie, you're saying hey, one of the ways our mental models are formed is by our experience. And underneath that I'm saying and how do we weight it? How do we weight that experience? And that's part of sort of like unpacking our mental model.
Speaker 2:Because the experience is true, it did happen. There is also truth and reality apart from that, and so how do you weight how much meaning it has towards my interpretation of reality?
Speaker 1:That's right. So, first formation, experience shapes our mental models. Another big one, I just think, is education. I mean, man, I'll just be honest, 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 a biblical studies and theology major and so in a lot of ways, I did a lot of study of history and philosophy and, like, my degree was basically in mental models. In a lot of ways it's like here's how people have been thinking and understanding things throughout the history of the world and how do we integrate that within a biblical framework and a Christian worldview? Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I was blessed to have some really incredible, I think, professors who had done a lot of work creating healthy mental models and ways of understanding, and I'm in their debt for that. But I imagine, if you think about your own life, who are the teachers? What were the classes? 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 think and see the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so true. One more I would name is just social and cultural influences. You know that I would say this is a little more like we've named that. You have this imprint of of first formation in the family you grew up in you and they shape how you see the world and how you categorize things around you. You have the ways that were very directly imparted to you through education, very purposefully saying you should think this way.
Speaker 2:The social and cultural influence I feel like has this sort of tertiary way of influencing us without us realizing it, way of influencing us without us realizing it Right.
Speaker 2:So like, if I'm following, even if I'm not following someone on social media let's just name that I scroll through things on Instagram.
Speaker 2:I'm not even following this person, but the way that they're portraying something, or like a comedian, a little clip of a comedian that's like got this clever way of seeing something and you're like, oh, I didn't think about it that way, you start to like absorb some of those ways of seeing the world and I just think it has a little more of the social and cultural influences through politics and societal sentiment of how you perceive people are feeling about certain current events. It has like a more. It's more of like you're like slowly absorbing it rather than some of the other ways that has just been like very directly given to you. I don't know if that makes sense, but especially in politics, you have one political leader that you sense like has their head on straight, and so you kind of follow them in a way, and now you find yourself very much absorbing the way they see everything now, rather than just being able to dissect. Hey, I agree with them about this issue. Now it's like everything they say now is influencing me and how I see the world.
Speaker 3:Yes, we can do a whole episode on mental models. Oh yeah, you could be.
Speaker 1:We could just interview you, you know.
Speaker 3:I suppose, yeah, but that was can come into for that. Yeah, that'd be really fun.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, we are influenced. Our mental models are influenced by the culture we live in and the algorithms, right, just as, katie, you were saying, hey, when you hang out with another family, you might notice different mental models at play. This is also what happens when you travel internationally or to a different country. You're like, all of a sudden it exposes some of the things we don't see in our own culture that are actually shaping us and influencing us, right?
Speaker 1:It's like oh, there's some differences here. But yeah, I mean, just think about the societal values that have momentum right now and, whether you agree with those or not, they're actually shaping your mental models, because you're either getting swept up in the current of those or you're reacting against them. You know what I mean, like either way. And so, yeah, we have to be mindful of here's, the culture we're swimming in, and how is that influencing the way I see and take action in the world? You know, and when it comes to mental models, in a lot of ways this is what's been super disorienting, I think, for the evangelical church this whole idea of deconstruction. Right, I don't know if you, I mean, I've written about it, I think we've mentioned it a few times, but this word, deconstruction, is pretty popular.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm hearing a lot. It's kind of a buzzword.
Speaker 1:But it seems to me that deconstruction is simply the forming and reforming of our mental models and by questioning the assumptions and maybe exposing the hidden frameworks and opening ways for new understanding, like that's, deconstruction at its heart is questioning mental models. Deconstruction at its heart is questioning mental models and it involves disrupting potentially an old mental model, or strengthening it if you find it to be true and solid. But I think part of what's happening, you guys, is you've got a number of people who grew up in an evangelical environment and, I would say, weren't just given a set of mental models, but an entire paradigm. So a paradigm is like a broader framework that includes the mental models underneath it. So there was an entire evangelical paradigm that gave them mental models about all these different areas of life marriage, parenting, dating right, theological convictions, et cetera and what's happening is is that, as, as those who grew up in evangelical homes are getting some space apart from those environments, they move out of their house or whatever, they're beginning to go. Whoa, what about these mental models that I was given? Are they true and what kind of work are they doing?
Speaker 1:Whether it's the CEO model of leadership that our church had or this idea that bigger is better, us versus them, dynamics that tend to be common in evangelical environments purity culture, theological convictions around biblical inerrancy or human sexuality or atonement theory or the afterlife. You know what I mean. Heaven, hell, eternal conscious torment All these things are now. People are going well, time out, time out. I actually want to examine this to 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 mental model and in fact, this mental model that is sort of unquestioned in many evangelical environments is actually hurtful and harmful in many respects. Here's the bad work. Here's the shadow side of purity culture, here's the shadow side of bigger is better, here's the. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's really interesting that, as I'm seeing some of these four ways that we're naming where mental models come from, or four of them is I got all of those from my church growing up, like my experience with modern religion in general, all four of those categories the cultural influence, education, personal experiences, first formation all happen within the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the problem with deconstruction I would name, and I'm playing more devil's advocate.
Speaker 2:I think, in this moment. But the problem is it is often framed in a way that I have to choose all or nothing. And what I hear you and I would push back against that because I think that's why deconstruction gets a bad rap, because often people assume or maybe that's actually their lived experience that they did have to choose all or nothing. You either believe all of what you've been taught or you have to reject faith and we create a picture that you have to that. If, if your paradigm, the way you view the world, is a giant collection of all of our mental models, um, and you tell me that, in order for me to rethink how I view the world, this one mental model and this one tiny little mental model, that I have to give up my end, like the entire paradigm, the entire paradigm, in order to do so. Like that isn't very fair to the person and it also creates it just creates a lot of problems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, just funny side note, as you were talking, mac, and I could be totally wrong on this, but it occurs to me that evangelicalism became really popular what 40, 50-ish years ago because people were deconstructing more of the mainline denominations. Like, I feel like I don't know a lot of people more in my parents' generation. I know kind of deconstructed Catholicism or Lutheranism or some of the more mainline. Then evangelicalism got really big and popular and now, what do you know? We're kind of deconstructing evangelicalism. But I think, yeah, I think you're right, I think deconstructing if we're going to just talk about deconstructing is like asking really hard questions about faith.
Speaker 3:I think that's a good thing, but we don't want to stop there. We want to continue to move forward and reconstruct a faith that holds up in real life. And I would submit that that type of reconstructed faith needs to be centered on Jesus and not just like ideas about Jesus, but the way he lived, the things he cared about, the convictions that guided his actions. And this is why we exist as a church right To be like Jesus and to live like Jesus. So in this series we want to talk about what were Jesus's mental models, what were the truths that shaped, how he loved people, how he talked to God the Father, how he responded to injustice, how he navigated power and pain. And if you are listening and you go to Crosspoint especially if you've been through a leadership intensive, these shouldn't be new to you. But these are some of the core convictions that we're going to discuss in the series. We want to kind of preview those for you before we move forward.
Speaker 1: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 ways people are relating to that, this idea of questioning or getting underneath our mental models. Some people double down on their mental model that's being critiqued and just insist that it's true and that if you're questioning it there's a problem with you. That's one response. Another response is to maybe even antagonistically attack all these mental models you were given and deconstruct and ultimately deconvert. We hold the conviction as a church and this is what I think you're getting at that this is a normal part of a person's faith journey. Just like Apple comes out with a new software update, we always need to be doing software updates when it comes to our mental models around following Jesus. This was actually baked into the Reformation. They had this motto of always reforming. This is part of what it means. To always be reforming is to be examining the lenses through which we're looking, the interpretations that we're holding to and questioning their accuracy, not for the sake of just getting rid of faith, but actually to seek a greater faith. It's faith seeking understanding, and the way we do that is, by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus.
Speaker 1:And when I look at Jesus, I noticed that in the gospels he's constantly disrupting people's mental models. Right, we talk about all those different areas of life. You know the way Jesus viewed God. It was very clear. He's not a distant deity or just some transcendent judge, he's an intimate father. The way he viewed people, my goodness, every person he treats as an image bearer, not sort of someone to be stereotyped. You know what I mean. Like he was disrupting the common ways people saw those who are disabled, those who were poor, those who are marginalized. That's what he was trafficking in. He was providing different mental models that disrupted people's categories. He disrupted mental models around power. Instead of top down, he reversed it, he inverted it. Right, he turned almost every area of life upside down based on mental models that were how would I say this Contrary to the kingdom of God. And so part of following Jesus is that we need to not only have his mental models but, to a certain degree, as a church community, be disrupting mental models that subvert the kingdom.
Speaker 3:And, in some cases, are mental models that come under the guise of religion. Yes, which is the same thing that happened in Jesus's day.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's really interesting, as you're saying, that I was reminded in Genesis 3, where the story of creation and after the fall, god asks Adam who told you you were naked? No other influence towards the mental models. God saw the brokenness and knew that underneath it was an interpretation of how the world works. Who told you? Who told you you were naked? He's very he's, he's getting underneath, like how did you get this mental model? Yeah, where'd you get this from? Yeah, because I didn't give it to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, sorry, just yeah, so all so, anyway, sorry, just yeah. So all that to say. Maybe we will at some point do an entire series on deconstruction and maybe pick at some of these areas, whether it's women in ministry or whatever. But what you're hearing us say is that this is actually part of faith. It can be healthy. It can be engaged in a healthy way. It also can be engaged in an unhealthy way. We're saying it can be done in a healthy way by keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus and whatever area you're deconstructing whether that's parenting, family, theological convictions fixing your eyes on Jesus is the best way to do that.
Speaker 1:Now in this series we can't unpack the entire paradigm of Jesus's mental models. We're sort of picking an area of Jesus's mental models related to missional discipleship. How did Jesus make and multiply disciples who live on mission in the world? So we're not going to be talking about, for instance, his mental models around family or economics or power. Those are separate. What we're going to be talking about is like, what were the mental models that Jesus had related to multiplying disciples that live on mission in the world?
Speaker 3:Which will inform those other areas that you mentioned Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, but like as a starting point so maybe let's give our listeners just a little bit of a teaser of hey in this series that these are some of the mental models. We've kind of tried to come up with some pithy statements to go. This captures one of Jesus' mental models around missional discipleship. Let's give them a taste of where we're headed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to be doing an episode on each one of these statements, and so we're just going to share what they are here in this space, so you can sort of look forward to one. The first episode is going to be that God's presence precedes our participation. Essentially, god goes first. We don't carry God with us. God is already doing things before we get there.
Speaker 1:We're also going to do an episode on the fact that God bends to meet us where we are. There's a sense in which God meets us in our reality, but he also meets us in reality, like he wants to pull us into his reality. So we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 3:We'll do an episode on the fact that God is like Jesus. So if you want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus Like Jesus was God in the flesh. He says I and the Father are one. So when we see who Jesus cared about and how he lived, we're seeing the truest picture of God that's available to us.
Speaker 2:Another one will be that God's kingdom looks like Jesus's ministry. That joining God in the world involves living like Jesus. That there's a significance to the way Jesus lived his life and invites us into his kingdom in a way that Jesus joined it.
Speaker 1: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 effort always follows.
Speaker 3:God cares about the who and not just the do. This is the idea that who you are matters more than what you do. That, in God's eyes, our identity isn't earned by what we accomplish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another one will be God wants us to know him, not just serve him. That mission and what we do for God is the overflow of communion with God, that is, we don't have to do things apart from him or just for him, but we get to know him intimately as we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we're gonna try to close out the series by talking about how God leads and guides through the Holy Spirit. I mean, jesus lived a spirit-filled life, and especially in this day and age where a lot is changing, agility becomes the new stability. Being agile in the Holy Spirit, under the Holy Spirit's leadership and guidance, is really important. So that's a little bit of where we're headed. I hope you can sleep at night. I know you probably can't contain your excitement. One of the things I want to do before we give some practices to close this episode around mental models is I feel the need to give some credit where credit is due, and what I mean by that is look, I don't say very many things that are original to me, if any at all. I am a vivacious reader, so I'm always reading and absorbing ideas and then figuring out how to package them myself, and you know what.
Speaker 1:I mean Like this is what leaders do, they're, they're, they're, they're being shaped by other people and um, and so I listen to podcasts, I read books, there's, there's people that I'm indebted to, that have invested in me in a really deep way and help shape some of these core convictions, to help see these mental models and package them. So I just want to mention maybe some 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 much contributing to this. But I'm very indebted to my professors in college, like super indebted. My professors at Bethel University were incredible. They were very Jesus-centered and influenced me greatly and in fact, when you hear me say God is like Jesus, that is straight up from that season in my life and the influence there, deeply influenced by a guy named Paul Eddy and a guy named Jim Bilby. One of my professors was Greg Boyd, who literally wrote a book recently called God is Like Jesus. So when you hear that, it's not new, it's something that's been said for the last 2000 years in different ways by theologians. But you need to know that's not me saying it. It's like I'm indebted to people.
Speaker 1:Another area that we're drawing on is missional theology and I have a great friend some of you know him named Michael Bender, and he's worked with our staff, kind of um, throughout his PhD program and throughout his PhD program I was constantly for about 10 years going, michael, tell me everything you're reading, give me your syllabus, and so he was constantly giving me. Here's the textbook, here's what you know, craig Van Gelder, alan Roxburgh Like I was almost trying to take advantage of his do my own PhD on the side, you know, almost trying to take advantage of it. Do my own PhD on the side, you know. So Michael Bender has been a huge influence, my friend Matt Tebbe. I went to grad school with Matt and he wrote a book called Having the Mind of Christ with his buddy, ben Sternke, who led a retreat for us, a staff retreat for us. So they're good friends and what's interesting is this is a huge influence.
Speaker 1:Before Having the Mind of Christ, which is an awesome book, each chapter started as an article and I was part of proofreading those and that's what actually, I think in large part inspired this series to go. Hey, what are the? How would we say? These are the mental models Jesus had when it came to missional discipleship and so they're a huge part of it. And then my friends at the Leader's Journey have very much influenced us as a staff through their language of mental models and so on. So I just say that because a lot of what we're going to be talking about in the series. I don't want people to get the impression like, oh, this is just. Matt, katie and Josiah are brilliant. No, we're just doing the work of consolidating. People are much smarter than us. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: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 of speaking about mental models. Like all of us, all of our thoughts have been shaped and influenced.
Speaker 1: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 mental models have come from.
Speaker 3:You know what I?
Speaker 1:mean All right. Well, it is practice time.
Speaker 3:Practice podcast Never gets old.
Speaker 1:It never does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so practice. The first practice we'd encourage is just to examine your own prescription lenses. Try to do the work of observing your own mental models. If you go to see a therapist and you're dealing with an issue, they're going to do schema therapy, where they're going to unpack okay, what's here's your scheme Like, what is your schema for this specific thing you're dealing with? Let's unpack all of it. What are where, all the influence of those things we're going to, we're going to get it all out on the table and then we can look and say, hey, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to keep this one, we're not going to do this one, all that stuff. Anyway, a good therapist is going to be able to do that with you. So, um, all that to say is it starts by just being able to name. These are the lenses I'm wearing and and I think that helps with um.
Speaker 2:It's more helpful if you get specific. So not just in general my entire worldview. Pick a specific thing. What are some of the influence that have shaped? Let's just say, if you're a parent, what are the influences that have shaped my parenting? How did my parents parent? And just like look at the lenses and say how am I viewing this one area of my life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in having the mind of Christ, matt and Ben actually provides like a roadmap for doing what you're describing. Josiah, examining your lenses and I looked it up and just kind of jotted down some notes the first step was just to realize that you're wearing glasses. You're wearing glasses. Second is what you're describing. Notice the way those glasses are shaping your perception. Thirdly, appreciate how other people, past and present, see the same world through different glasses. There might be like, hey, I need to actually engage with other people and sort of like see how they're viewing things, maybe be curious about the limitations of your perspective and then experiment with different glasses. You know what I mean. Yeah, have you ever, like grabbed someone's glasses and tried them on and been like whoa, you know, this is what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like that's part of it, yeah, and you touched on this. But another practice would be just dialoguing with people who see things differently, and there are many of them, and if you don't feel like you have anyone in your life that sees things differently, then I would strongly suggest you get some, whether it be parenting we mentioned faith politics, um, really anything. Because here's what happens First, it again helps you recognize the mental models that you've been carrying, things you just kind of assumed to be true without ever really examining them. And then, second, it exposes us to other ways of seeing and to living. You don't have to agree with everything, but it does help us become more thoughtful, more curious and more humble.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure yeah, and obviously we're living in a culture of echo chambers.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and so I want to validate what you're saying, that if you're in an echo chamber with people who look like you, think like you, act like you, you need to figure out how to break out of that Cause that is going to very much have a limiting impact on your mental models. Yeah, and I want to say at the same time every single person you encounter, every single person, is someone you can dialogue with to challenge your mental models. Like Katie, you see the world, we see a lot of things similarly.
Speaker 3:We do.
Speaker 1: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 things similarly because we've talked about them a lot and the way that you have experienced things, like all the things we've named, help me, help me to see things I otherwise wouldn't be able to see. Yeah, you know what I mean. So, literally every single person you're talking to is an opportunity to get curious about lenses.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I remember real quick. I remember when we were young parents, we hung out with a couple that was a little older than us they had kids that were older and we were pretty green and I just remember observing some of the things in their home and I liked some of it. I didn't like other parts of it, but he said something to me that always stuck out as like something. Even just being exposed to it made me think about something in a different way and it became something that I absorbed and I just remember his kids were being crazy. One of them came out completely butt butt naked after after swimming and he's just like okay, that's my kid. Ladies and gentlemen, here they are. But I just remember he said he just said like, he's just like I.
Speaker 2:I am not ever going to apologize for my kids for just being a kid and and I don't know it was along with spending time with them and seeing the sentiment he had towards parenting and the way he loved his kids. That is something I wanted to absorb. I'm not going to apologize for my kids because I can't manage how I feel awkward because they're being a kid and it's just an example of exposing yourself to other people that maybe are different than you different stages of life You're going to be able to learn other things and expand your mental models.
Speaker 1:I sense you have deconstructed the mental model that kids should be seen, not heard.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah for sure, all right.
Speaker 1:Examine your own prescription lenses, practice one, dialogue with people who see things differently. Break out of your echo chamber, but also recognize every single person sees things differently. And then, finally, I'm gonna borrow from Kenrick Lamar. I didn't even know who that was till the halftime show this year, but my kids apparently like him. And then I started listening to a few songs. So here's the final practice Sit down, be humble. From a song, humble which is on my podcast or my playlist right now for working out.
Speaker 3:Maybe we can cut that into the episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but here's the point is resist arrogance and embrace humility, and this starts with recognizing a lot of what we're talking about that you don't have unfiltered access to reality, and that should create a sense of humility. Um, there with our, with the leader's journey, we have this little diagram we use, um, that kind of highlights how much we don't know. So imagine a pie chart and the smallest part of the pie is what I know that I know. So I know how to speak English. I know you know some things about this or that. That's the smallest piece of the pie.
Speaker 1:The next part of the pie, the medium sized piece of the pie, is um pie. The medium sized piece of the pie is um, what I know that I don't know. So, for instance, um, I know I don't know um all that. You know, katie, about um laws and compliance. I know that I don't know how to speak Russian. Um, you know what I mean Like you could do, I don't know how to. I don't know what the mean Like you could do, I don't know how to. I don't know what the folks know at NASA or a brain surgeon.
Speaker 1:And we're like there's all these categories. If you really dialed it, I don't know that. Then the third category is, I don't know what I don't know, I don't even know that I don't know it, and that's the largest part of the pie. There's all kinds of stuff that I don't know and I'm not even aware that I don't know it. So not only do our mental models are suspect to being inaccurate, right, which requires ongoing sort of examination of those and strengthening of them but just to recognize, man, there's so much I don't know, and this should create a sense of humility and it should sort of remove that arrogant certainty that many people bring to dialogue around so many different topics. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's all of it.
Speaker 3:Sit down, be humble.
Speaker 1:Sit down, be humble, All right. Well, we've kind of previewed where we're going in the series. Next time we're going to start with the first one. That God's activity always precedes our participation, so we're going to unpack that a little bit. We encourage you to stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Praxis is recorded and produced at Crosspoint Community Church. You can find out more about the show and our church at crosspointwicom. If you have any questions, comments or have any suggestions for future topics, feel free to send us an email. Also, if you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review and if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you get your podcasts, you.
