PART TWO: EMBRACING OUR POVERTY
You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. Revelation 3:17
The Laodiceans feel rich. Jesus says they are poor. Which is true? Why would these mature Christians have the opposite viewpoint from Jesus?
Regardless of how long we have known Christ, and regardless of how much we think we are doing for him, are we also subconsciously harboring opinions that are in conflict with the mind of Christ? I think we are! And not only that, I think our problem is a lot closer to the Laodiceans’ problem than we would care to admit. Like the people of Laodicea, we as Western Christians are leaning heavily on our abilities and our resources. I don’t think God is impressed by this. Instead, he sees the Laodiceans wallowing in deep poverty. I think that, as a church, we need to own this for ourselves as well and repent of our self-sufficiency, agreeing with God that we are in inner poverty and that the shiny resources surrounding us are only empty shells!
Mental Models
Jesus had carefully listened to what the Laodiceans were saying to themselves deep inside, though maybe not consciously, and put his finger on the crux of the problem of why they were lukewarm. The problem stemmed from their faulty perception of themselves: “I am rich and do not need a thing.”
They assumed their wealth, resources, and influence could do whatever needed doing, that using them was the way things work in the real world. They may not have realized that this was what they were thinking, but when Jesus put it so clearly, it showed them where they had gone wrong. Their unconscious mental model was telling them how to do things in the world through reliance on their own resources instead of on the indwelling Spirit of God.
I think many of us Western Christians have mental models very similar to those of the Laodiceans. We see ourselves as educated, rich, influential, well resourced, and as people who do good things. But like the Laodiceans, our mental perceptions of ourselves can get us into trouble. As Westerners, we tend to think, “We’re okay. Things are going well. We’ll make it. Our programs are progressing nicely. And if, God forbid, they should falter, we know how to fix them.” Our basic underlying assumption is that our programs and activities are what is needed to make it in the kingdom of God. Jesus lets us know that there is something wrong with that assumption by saying, “You are poor, blind, and naked.”
When someone confronts our faulty mental models, it is unsettling. We don’t want to hear our mental models stated clearly because that can be embarrassing. It is like someone seeing our ragged underwear or investigating the corners of our messy garage. When we hear our mental models expressed by another person, we might rear back and say, “That’s really not it,” or even, “It’s not spiritual to say it that way; let me rephrase that.” But, actually, God does not want us to find a nice way to say what drives us. Rather, he encourages us to confront boldly the real ideas that cause us to take action.
Once our faulty mental models are exposed, we realize they are not even rational. It is better to bring them out into the open, where they can be addressed. Better yet is to be able to expose our faulty mental models with respect and humor, in a safe environment.
Peter Senge challenges his readers to identify their mental models and—particularly when things have not worked out well in what they are doing—to correct not only what they did wrong, but also the thinking process that incorrectly made them even think that it was the right thing to do. Senge uses the word metanoia, which he defines as “a shift of mind.” He says, “To grasp the meaning of ‘metanoia’ is to grasp the deeper meaning of ‘learning,’ for learning also involves a fundamental shift or movement of mind.”1
“Metanoia” is the New Testament Greek word used for repentance. True repentance, this shifting of the mind from faulty mental models, is a prerequisite for operating appropriately in our world, and an attitude of ongoing repentance is key to redemptive thinking.
We find in the Gospels that Jesus, too, spent a lot of time challenging people’s mental models through his stories, teachings, and miracles. So, it’s imperative that we answer the question, “What do you have in mind?” Do we have in mind the thoughts that God has or the thoughts that are inconsistent with what God thinks? If our subconscious mental models are inconsistent with the way God thinks, we may actually be out of sync in our thinking with the reality of God’s entire living system, and our actions, which flow from our thinking, will be out of sync with what God is doing—and we may not even know it!
Shedding faulty mental models and finding new ones that line up with the greater reality of God’s truth is an important part of the discipleship process. It is not just our actions, but also our thinking that Christ needs to redeem. This applies not only to individuals, but to our culture as well.
The Works Mental Model
As a culture, we Westerners have almost universally adopted a mental model concerning how reality works based on the things we make rather than on living system design. People make toasters. Only God makes cats. And, contrary to popular thought, we can’t fix our cat with the tools we may use to fix our toaster. So why do we try to fix our churches with the tools we may use to fix a car or a computer? It is because we have wrong mental models, and we are blind to them.
Most Western Christians are very familiar with the basic teaching that works—doing what we perceive are worthy acts in order to please God—will neither atone for our sin nor get us to heaven. Put simply, “Works doesn’t work!” Paul discusses this idea in the book of Romans, starting in chapter 4. Well, I want to take this idea of works down a slightly different path. The kind of works I will talk about doesn’t work on earth either.
Let me take apart how we usually go about doing works. We use what I call the works mental model or the works method when we set about to accomplish most every task, such as when I repair my toaster. Works thinking is a simple, mechanistic approach, involving just four variables. As Westerners, we are so used to using it that few of us are consciously aware of it. We learn to think this way and we approach almost all our problems subconsciously with this thinking. I diagram it like this:
The Law of Unintended Negative Returns
If I am fixing a toaster, the works method works just fine. Our culture developed it along with the Industrial Revolution because it works. It’s great for building bridges, cleaning the house, and thousands of other tasks.
However, as soon as we introduce people or any living system into the works equation, it is inevitable that unintended negative returns will result, and instead of solving a problem, we will make things worse. I call it the Law of Unintended Negative Returns: Whatever we do to accomplish something has an unintended negative return that undoes what we are trying to do. Others refer to this as the “law of unintended consequences.” Not only will unexpected things happen as a result of our actions, but invariably, unintended negative things will happen, bringing the opposite result of what we are expecting to accomplish.
We find that the works mental model does not work for solving problems that involve people. It is a flawed mental model because of unintended negative returns that it has no mechanism to address.
Let’s return to the Works Method and attempt to make our earlier diagram more honest by adding one new step, which I will label number 5: “Unintended negative returns are ignored.” Between number 3 and number 5, I will add a dotted line with two hash lines across it. These two lines represent a time delay. One reason we will not notice the negative returns is that it often takes longer for them to develop than the simplistic, more obvious cause-and-effect returns. But that good return will eventually be countered by the problems that are simmering below the surface and that will emerge over time, perhaps years later, overwhelming and reversing the good we initially produced. Because of the time delay, we may never become aware of them.
Next, I will draw a dotted line from number 5 back to number 1 to show that these ignored unintended negative returns are making the situation worse. They are feeding the problem, not solving it.
I will also add another step, which I have numbered 6: “I therefore do nothing else to meet the need.” A second problem created when we ignored the unintended negative returns is that we get out of the loop. We do nothing more to meet the need because we think the job is done. We did the plan. We got returns. Problem solved. We step away and move on.
Do you see how adding these two pieces of information gets us closer to the real world? In this diagram, the works method has one element that gets something done (getting returns), but two elements that make the situation worse (ignoring unintended negative returns and doing nothing else to meet the need). This shows how works is counterproductive even when we assume it is doing the job. Works, as an alternative to grace, doesn’t get us to heaven. And works, as a method for solving problems, doesn’t get the job done this side of heaven either.
Perhaps knowing about the Law of Unintended Negative Returns will slow us down to take stock of what we do before we do it. We must learn always to ask, as part of the planning process, “How could our best efforts be counterproductive?”
Embracing Our Poverty
When Judy and I were embroiled in all the problems in our city the turbulent ’60s and ’70s, it was obvious that many of the problems stemmed from the criminal element; that was a no-brainer. But I was stunned to find out that the really insidious problems, the ones that were far more difficult to address, resulted from the efforts of very sincere, well-meaning people. People just like me. Sincere activities do not always produce the results we would like to see.
From my perspective as a veteran urban minister, living and working among the poor for so many years, seeing spiritual vitality increase in the Western world would indeed be a great miracle. Such a miracle would have to begin with us “rich” Christians—and if you are reading this book or viewing it online, consider yourself among the world’s very rich. It would have to begin with us actually seeing ourselves as God sees us. It is not a matter of deciding whether or not the wealthy are actually poverty stricken, because God says we definitely are: “You are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev 3:17). No, the miracle happens inside us when we agree, confess, and admit in a highly concrete and objective way that we are extremely poor. Embracing our poverty is precious in the sight of God.
For me, the best way to keep this perspective in my thinking so that I do not become unfruitful is to remember that I live in a fallen world. It’s that simple. If I start any plan or activity with the realization that it could very well blow up in my face, that I may do more damage than good, that I could easily reap a harvest of unintended negative returns, that I inevitably tend to be counterproductive in all my actions, that I can reap death instead of life, then I have placed myself in a position of humility and dependence upon God before I even start to move. It is precisely from that position that fruitfulness begins.
By starting with the recognition that “I cannot solve problems” because “I live in a fallen world,” I am starting to transform the very essence of the way I go about ministry activities. In the next unit, we will show how the redemptive method replaces our old works mental model with something far more likely to bear the fruit that remains, that will keep us from being unfruitful and lukewarm. While our wealth is producing within us an invisible poverty, we will now learn how our invisible poverty will produce real wealth.
1 Senge, The Fifth Discipline,13.
(text excerpted from The Cat and the Toaster, pp. 83–128)
This condensed version is 
