John Walt

I feel led to share some deep thoughts with you that are very close to my heart. I believe that now more than ever we need to evaluate the paradigms we have about life and, most importantly, what it means to follow Jesus. If you are like me, you will find that much of how you see the world and what you believe about God was shaped by the world around you.

A paradigm is a framework of beliefs and practices that shape how people understand and engage with the world. It provides a model or pattern for thinking and acting. The term originates from the Greek word paradeigma, meaning "pattern" or “example. Paradigms are deeply ingrained systems of thought that operate unconsciously and influence behavior, values, and decision-making across all areas of life. Simply put, our paradigms guide our thinking and actions.

A paradigm is what we believe is true - Scott Dohner

We all have paradigms that we aren’t even aware of that drive our thinking, decisions, and actions. Consider that everyday we interact with lots of complex systems like the systems that make food available at grocery stores and in restaurants, the systems that keep our communities from falling apart, the systems that educate children, keep our cars and houses functioning, the system that make a smartphone work, fill it with content and connect us to the rest of the world. How many of these systems do you really understand how they work? We don’t understand most of the systems we rely on for our very existence. What we have in place of an in-depth understanding is essentially paradigms.

When we think about eating, we don’t generally think about hunting and planting crops. We instead think about grocery stores and restaurants. A couple of hundred years ago, people had very different paradigms about food and their relationship to it. We have paradigms about everything, and they help us make decisions. Paradigms shift over time and are shaped by the world we live in, often without us even being aware.

We need paradigms because they essentially organize our understanding of a specific domain so that we can navigate our way through it. If someone from the Texas frontier in the 1840’s suddenly appeared in a city today, they would have no understanding of how to interact with it. We live in a different world than they did, and their paradigms about how to survive would be completely unsuited for the world the way it is today. They would need a new paradigm for food, shelter, transportation, law and order, and communication to name a few.

I think one of the biggest problems we face today is that humans have not fundamentally changed, and God has not changed, but almost everything else about how we live has changed dramatically in the last few hundred years. Specifically, the last four generations (roughly 100 years) have seen radical changes in technology and culture, which have revolutionized how we spend our time, what we expect from life, and how we think.

We often assume that most of this change is for the good. I think that is a dangerous assumption because it depends entirely on how you measure good. If you measure it based on comfort, then yes, in the West, most of us live like kings. But if you measure it on happiness or sense of community, or values, then it becomes much harder to call our progress a net positive. Technology has certainly increased our ability to stay connected with more people, but it has actually hurt our ability to have real, meaningful relationships.

Let’s look especially at faith and spirituality. Are we spiritually better off today than past generations? Is our cultural understanding of God and relationship with God better off as a result of our technological and cultural progress?

Less people believe in God today in the West than ever before. This is, of course, because we have become a secular society. In the name of science, we have removed the place for God and faith values from our social fabric. When this is coupled with technology, entertainment and social media, its force is dramatically multiplied. I think it would be extremely foolish to assume that all of this doesn’t affect how we think about God and how we relate to Him.

Obviously, people have had flawed paradigms about God for all of human history, so what's different now? I think the biggest change is our pace of life, our access to distraction and our foundational social values and practices. Most humans throughout history didn’t rush around as much as we do. They couldn’t be entertained constantly like we can, and they didn’t have the ability to be constantly connected to the social thinking of the day on a massive scale.

Has this affected how you and I think about God? I think it certainly has. Our culture is built around self-gratification, that is fundamentally antithetical to the life Jesus invited us into. How can that singular focus on self in all its forms, repeated constantly all around us, not warp our paradigm of God?

We need a renewed Paradigm for life with God.

Every religion is essentially offering paradigms to show people how to navigate life. A religious paradigm provides people with a way to interpret the world, understand their place within it, and make decisions based on shared beliefs and values. It offers structured systems of meaning, purpose, and guidance. The modern Christian paradigms are fundamentally broken, and that is why it is losing its hold on the Western world. We desperately need to reconstruct our paradigm for what it means to be a follower of Jesus in this modern world.

Here are some observations to consider on how our modern Christian paradigms are fundamentally misaligned with the Gospel.

Disciples: Scott shared with me something when we first met that changed how I see most Christian ministry. He said, “Jesus called the church to make disciples. If we evaluate most churches the way we do businesses, we would have to say that they aren’t achieving their primary objective because they aren’t producing disciples.” We do not see most churches producing followers of Jesus like we see them described in the Bible. What we see instead is people who share similar beliefs and values about God gathering together regularly in a sort of faith-based social club. The early church produced disciples by the boatload with very limited resources. These disciples weren’t just religious converts; they were people who had committed to a life of radical discipleship. The budgets, branding, buildings, staff, technology, and entertainment have not helped us produce more disciples.

Resources: In the first-century church, the community of believers acted as the storehouse of the community. If you needed food, shelter, or clothing, you went to the followers of Jesus. Tithing was the gift from the people in the body to fill up the storehouse for their community. Now churches use most of their tithe money for paying staff salaries, mortgages, and improving their member experience and group events. How many people in need do you see knocking on the doors of most churches today? Are the storehouses empty? Are they even available?

Influence: The early church was highly influential with very limited resources, essentially no buildings, no marketing, and no paid staff. If you look at the statistics, Christianity has been declining in the West. Less people are attending church and believing in God. Where growth is happening, it is primarily through micro churches and home churches. It may look like churches are growing, but that is because of consolidation. More people are attending the top-performing churches. The other churches essentially go out of business or stop growing.

Unity: Why do we have so many denominations? Why do we have so many different churches of the same denomination in every city in America? Churches split at an alarming rate. Instead of focusing on what matters most, churches split over disagreements about things that really shouldn’t matter, like positions, control, and finances. We play politics with each other while ignoring the things we are actually called to do, like making disciples and unity.

Christian means a follower of Jesus Christ, but practically it has come to represent a paradigm that is far different from the path of life that Jesus invited us onto. Church used to mean the body of Christ, and over time its meaning has evolved to represent a tax-exempt non-profit organization that serves the Christian religion. Do we really want to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, or do we want to check the faith box and avoid this whole dying business?

There is much more we could say here on each of these topics and others. What I hope is becoming clearer is that our current paradigm of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is tragically broken. I don’t think we have intentionally lost the way, I think it has happened slowly without our awareness as our culture has evolved, and it increasingly impacts how we think and what we want and expect from our faith. Our paradigms have evolved with the culture we live in, and as a result, Christianity has become what it is today. So how do we rebuild our paradigm?

Rules vs. Tools

I have written in other notes about why we love rules, but here is a quick refresher. The industrial revolution changed our education system and made learning more about memorizing information and passing tests. This is because the factory systems of the industrial world needed people who could play their part reliably in a larger machine. This type of education is built around binary thinking, right and wrong, yes or no. It is not built around processes of learning, growing, and transforming. As humans, our insecurity and fear can lead us to grasp for any certainty we can find to ensure we are “right” and not “wrong." Every civilization has offered rules for being “right.” What makes ours unique, though, is that we have almost completely removed the concept of process from our concepts of right and wrong. This is why we crave rules. We want to be “right” and we want it right now.

Binary, rules-based thinking works well in mechanical systems and software, where a part or piece of code is either right or wrong. It completely fails everywhere else. What ends up happening is that we crave rules, we make sure we are abiding by those rules, and then we turn our brains and hearts off. All that really does is put us in a prison of illusion, or a distorted reality where we believe we are “right” because we obeyed our rules or at least enough of them to pass the test.

I wrote in Note #8 about Box and Line Thinking, and I compared organic systems to mechanical systems. Machines are mechanical systems, but anything that involves people is a complex organic system, whether that is a community, a business or a family. Rules alone will not help us successfully navigate all the complex organic systems around us. Trying to navigate complex organic systems with rules is like trying to build a boat with just a hammer. Many people believe rules are all they need and then wake up years down the road, completely let down by their rules because they never got the outcomes they were promised.

In order to navigate a complex world that combines the mental, spiritual, and physical, we need tools that like a compass and a map help us figure out where we are and navigate to where we are trying to go. A good paradigm is not a bunch of rules. Instead, it’s made up of tools for thinking that guide our lives and shape our beliefs.

Tools for Transformation - Mindsets, Principles, Mental Models and Practices.

I want to share what I believe are the essential elements that shape a paradigm. I hope that by approaching the gospel through this lens, we can begin to reconstruct the foundations of our thinking and renew our minds about what it means to follow Jesus.

I am not as smart as I would like to be, and like I discussed in one of my last notes, none of us really know what we are doing. For these reasons, I am a huge fan of mental tools that help us navigate a complex world filled with complex people. I believe that paradigms are made up of principles, mental models, mindsets, and practices.

Most people are aware of what principles, mindsets, and practices are, but fewer people know about mental models. Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably, but they are all different, so I am going to share the definitions of each.

Mental Models: Mental models are tools for understanding that help us simplify complex systems so that we can better understand them. They are essentially a simplified explanation of how something works.

For example, supply and demand is an economic mental model that explains how prices fluctuate based on availability and consumer desire. Dying to the false self is a mental model that helps us understand the process of letting go of control of our lives and surrendering to God.

Principles: A principle is a fundamental truth or guideline that serves as the foundation for behavior and decision-making. It reflects ethical or practical values that are often timeless and universal. Principles are essentially truths that guide decision-making and actions.

For example, integrity is a principle that means acting with honesty and moral uprightness in all situations. God is trustworthy is a principle that is always true and impacts how we live every part of our lives.

Mindsets: Mindsets are personal attitudes and beliefs that influence our behavior.

For example, an Abundance Mindset is viewing opportunities and resources as plentiful, fostering collaboration and optimism. On the other hand, a Scarcity Mindset is viewing resources as limited, leading to competition or fear of loss. Following God is a mindset that helps us view every situation as an opportunity to let God lead us.

Practices: A practice is a habitual or regular activity that is performed with a specific purpose or goal in mind. It involves the repeated action to achieve mastery or a desired outcome.

For example, exercising regularly is a practice to maintain physical health. Prayer and fasting are spiritual practices, and weddings and funerals are cultural practices. Mentorship is a practice of spending time with older, wiser people who can demonstrate how to live.

I believe we need to rebuild our mental models, principles, mindsets, and practices to help us rediscover the paradigm that Jesus invited us into and what it means to follow him in the world we live in. In each of my notes so far, I have shared what I consider to be critical mental models, principles, mindsets, or practices.

For instance, notes numbers 4, 9, and 10 discuss mindsets that help us healthfully approach life, God, ourselves, and others. Notes numbers 2, 3, 6, and 8 are all mental models for understanding ourselves and the life God created us for. Notes numbers 4, 5, and 7 cover practices for life as a follower of Jesus. Notes numbers 1, 5, and 7 go over foundational principles of the life Jesus called us to.

In future notes, I will share more of these tools that have changed my life and reshaped my paradigm of how to live as a disciple of Jesus. My hope is that they can help you the way they have helped me on this wild journey of being transformed into who God created us to be.

Thank you for sticking with me. I know I covered a lot in this note. My hope is that you walk away with two thoughts.

First, the importance of recognizing that our current paradigm of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is broken and needs to be rebuilt.
Second, we need to go through a very intentional process of identifying and rebuilding the principles, mental models, mindset, and practices that our lives and relationships with God are built on.

- John Walt

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