Entrust Equipping Leaders
How can a person think Christianly about constructivist learning?
April 14, 2023
Dr. Donald Guthrie of TEDs describes constructivism, how the theory incorporates both God's nature and human agency in learning and how Christian leaders might approach this concept.
Guest Dr. Donald Guthrie on the learning theory known as constructivism.

Helpful links and resources

Dr. Guthrie's Equipping Christian Leaders article: https://www.entrust4.org/post/constructivism-gods-nature-and-human-agency-in-learning

Dr. Guthrie's book: Christian Higher Education: Faith, Teaching, and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition, Crossway, 2018

Entrust: https://www.entrust4.org

Transcript

Speaker Name  | Start Time  | Text
Todd  | 00;00;08;00  | How does God use our human brains and our collective experiences in collaboration with His all knowing wisdom to help us learn? The answer might be found in a learning theory called Constructivism. It's a century old concept embraced by some, questioned by others. And today's Entrust Equipping Leaders podcast. Our host, Laurie Lind, chats with Dr. Donald Guthrie of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School about Constructivism.
Laurie Lind  | 00;00;41;07  | Thank you, Todd, for that wonderful introduction. And today, I'm delighted to be able to introduce Dr. Donald Guthrie of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Maybe we could start out with you telling us a bit about your background so we know on what basis you have authority to talk with us about Constructivism today.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;01;05;02  | Sure. Well, I'll go way back. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and eventually went to college and then to seminary actually here at Trinity and then back home to Pittsburgh, was in the local church ministry and then campus ministry as well as higher education. For many years, various capacities have been a professor now since the nineties and a couple of different places, including back here at Trinity as well as Covenant Seminary, a few other places to Constructivism was a part of my master's and doctoral experience in the universities I attended.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;01;54;23  | So I was exposed to it as a kind of a theory base in grad school and became interested in thinking Christianly about it, to see not just what it was, but to see if there was sort of redemptive value. I guess I would say that way with it. So that's a maybe a quick review of how did I get here to even think about this topic over the years?
Laurie Lind  | 00;02;24;11  | That's very good to know. Yes, it's fed into who you are now. What are what do you teach or what? What are some of your roles at Trinity?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;02;33;24  | Currently, I direct a Ph.D. program in educational Studies, which is a degree for people in higher education or the local church or nonprofit service. Some have all three of those. Wow. About half of our group is from all kinds of international contexts. So I direct that program. I'm executive director of something called the Center for Transformational Churches as well.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;03;02;17  | And we work with pastors and their families on issues of well-being and support for them in their ministries.
Laurie Lind  | 00;03;14;04  | Now, my goodness, very important work, very complicated work, I'm sure. Mm hmm. And all of that very much. Then working with people who are going into education, you do think a lot about learning and how people learn. I'm sure. So our topic at hand today is quite a bit based on the article that you wrote for Entrust over a year ago, now called Constructivism God's Nature and Human Agency in Learning.
Laurie Lind  | 00;03;44;07  | Fascinating already just to think about that, that title, how would you define constructivism?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;03;51;19  | Well, as a learning as a learning theory, it's about creating meaning from experience. That's how you learn. You take whatever it is that's happening to you and you reflect and consider it, and that turns into your ongoing learning. In short.
Laurie Lind  | 00;04;12;13  | Yes, that's very much in short. We'll get into it more. It's also a bit of a response, as you wrote in your article, to another concept, which was called Behaviorism. So how would you define that?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;04;25;14  | Yeah, So so behaviorism is about learning again, but it's about behavioral change through external influences. So you might say behaviorism is more about what's happening to you and constructivism is more what's happening within you. And that's been a sort of an age old debate over the years. How does one develop? Is it more about what's happening in internally or externally on me?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;05;02;09  | So the Constructivism is a bit of a that's why I wrote it's a bit of a response to behaviorism, which is kind of ruled the day for a long time.
Laurie Lind  | 00;05;09;16  | And then you said you've really been learning to think Christian we about constructivism because I myself have encountered already people their hair kind of rises up when they hear this word in a Christian circle. Why are what are the criticisms from the Christian point of view of constructivism?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;05;26;27  | Well, constructivism is about it's about making the person the center. Obviously, if you're making meaning and that's sort of the goal of all learning, then it's about you. So the the Christian would be rightly alarmed or disturbed or bothered by making anything about the person rather than the Lord. And our response to the Lord. So there's that. That's sort of a criticism.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;05;59;17  | And others just say it's just in general to relativistic. It doesn't have a it doesn't have a wall against which to push because whatever meaning you make is whatever meaning you make. So go for it. And another another criticism that kind of moves beyond a Christian criticism would be it doesn't necessarily that it's constructivism. It does not account for power differences.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;06;31;19  | So at the end of the day, if I have more power than you, my meaning matters more than yours, to put it that way. And it doesn't necessarily account for that. My influence, my capacity to exert whatever power I have, whether it's positional or relational, it just doesn't account for that. It just is. It's my meaning and your meaning.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;06;53;17  | But at the end of day, somebody's meaning is going to matter more. So lots of folks have critiqued it for that lack of accounting. There's a there's a criticism about transfer of learning, a learning as you might, you might say, is all about transfer. It's all about I learn things in a particular context all the time, of course.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;07;19;22  | But what is it mean to move it from here to here and from here to here? Constructivism doesn't necessarily account for that, and especially for the folks who are keen on learning transfer. They want to hear more about that.
Laurie Lind  | 00;07;39;00  | About how the learning really transfer going to get.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;07;41;26  | From here to there. Yeah, that's right. So those are a couple of I would say a couple of well-known and pretty pretty widely discussed criticisms, both, as I say, from from Christians and people who are necessarily critiquing it from Christian perspective.
Laurie Lind  | 00;07;58;07  | Sure. You know, when you mentioned that about power, that made me think, though, like, say, for example, if I'm a student in your one of your classes at the seminary, your power is that of the professor. You're the teacher.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;08;11;19  | Yes.
Laurie Lind  | 00;08;12;01  | Would be possible in constructivist learning that I would listen to you. I would learn from you. I would receive what you said. And I might repeat back to you what you want to hear, because you have the power, so to speak, and and write an essay and write a paper and a thesis, whatever, and pass your class. But then go on and in my own say, well, actually I don't think any of that's true, but I just said it because that's what Dr. Guthrie wanted me to say.
Laurie Lind  | 00;08;38;19  | Might that happen? And then maybe. What does that mean? Does that mean? I know for.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;08;41;23  | Sure, because as you know, in many contexts in the world, what the teacher says is everything. It's the beginning, middle and end of everything of the lesson. Mm hmm. So the student feels pressure, whether exerted or not, by the teacher, the context itself, the culture might say, yeah, you, you have to follow whatever the teacher says. So there's no meaning making, there's no ownership, there's no agency on the part of the student.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;09;14;02  | It's just repeating and reflecting back, like you said, what the teacher says. So that's anything but constructivism.
Laurie Lind  | 00;09;22;28  | Because learning has not really occurred in that case.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;09;27;16  | No, because the student did not take the material and take it into themselves and say, okay, here's how I think about it. Here's how I own this, here's my perspective on this. After some further study and reflection that that's more Constructivism is interested in is how you make the learning your own.
Laurie Lind  | 00;09;47;10  | So, I mean, when we talk about people making meaning, it does even for me now, it raises some like I get thinking of find your truth in all of these somewhat optimistic statements we hear in the world around us how does how does this all fit together from a Christian point of view?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;10;08;02  | Well, I'd say first from a from a non-Christian point of view, it's education theory version of that. It's education theory version of Oprah's version of Fletcher.
Laurie Lind  | 00;10;20;24  | But about having said the name, that's exactly who I was thinking.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;10;23;26  | Oh, well, I mean that. Yeah, that's. That's helpful to. To remember that. Mm hmm. It's more of a of a sophisticated learning theory that does, again, on the upside, it it tries to elevate the students agency to learn something and actually actually learn something. And actually own it and actually mean something to the person. That's the upside. But without any sort of boundaries or direction or telos point, it just sort of begins and ends there.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;10;59;05  | So it's like I said earlier, it's rightly to be critiqued and examined because if that's all it is, then it's just sort of another secular theory that makes you the center.
Laurie Lind  | 00;11;11;22  | What does Telos mean, by the way.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;11;13;26  | End? What's the end? What's the goal toward which you are in this case, towards which you are learning and which in some ways really evaluates what you learn against the standard in pure Constructivism? The standard is, you know, and to whatever degree that you make the meaning you're making sort of from nothing into something. But it's all about your worldview and your and your own.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;11;46;13  | You yourself being the end.
Laurie Lind  | 00;11;48;19  | All right. Well, that definitely goes counter to anything that a Christian would say, because we would have there's a standard. There is truth. Whether I think I made that truth or not, it has nothing to do with the story. So how can a Christian embrace constructivism then?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;12;07;22  | Yeah, well, I mean, the the short answer is with a lot of care, a lot of reflection on the scripture. That's why I think in the article I mentioned Psalm 111, because I think, yes, that's one place among many. But but one place that kind of puts everybody in their place. So put it that way, God made everything and invites his people to explore what he made.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;12;34;29  | And that's this verse two of Psalm 111 Great of the works of the Lord study by all who delight in them. So it put it puts me the Christian you the Christian in response mode to the Creator God who made everything but this amazing creator. God invites his people to delight in opening up the things that He made and the ways he made things.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;13;01;07  | So we we actually use this this whole song, but especially that verse. It's kind of a jump off point for lots and lots of discussions here at Trinity in our program as a way of saying, Look, the Lord is so kind and is so generous and is so awesome that He invites us into his creation of all things so that we can, you might say, make meaning after him and the other reason why you and I can make meaning is because God is the one who speaks meaning into everything.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;13;40;18  | So that's why that's why it's possible with with with considerable considerable reflection, considerable inclusion of Scripture like this as an example, but that I can say and encourage Christians say, well, let's think about constructivism, not pure theoretical constructivism, which starts with nothing and ends with you, but what starts with God and ends with delight in the Lord. That's way better for you, starting from nowhere and going to me infinitely better, obviously.
Laurie Lind  | 00;14;24;04  | Oh, it all that all sounds ever so much more inviting. And so, yeah, if we are, for example, if we're studying a passage of Scripture together, we would believe there is God had a meaning when He wrote, when he gave us this chapter, this book of the Bible, it means something to him. I'm seeking to make meaning of it for myself.
Laurie Lind  | 00;14;48;24  | That doesn't mean that my meaning can be different from your meaning or can, as I incorporate my experiences in life and what I've learned through life. And you do as well. Might we arrive at slightly different conclusions and but then are we violating the intent of Scripture?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;15;07;23  | So so that actually that's a good that's a good reason why we should study the scripture together and not just by ourselves. I mean, I think I think seeing the Scripture personally with Lord's, that's fine. But it shouldn't only be that because because the take away often from Scripture and in our history in the church for the last while is what does this text mean to me?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;15;34;00  | Well, that's a good question. That's fine. There's nothing wrong, but it's got to move beyond the two and get to the fore because the for the for implicates me. You see, if I just say what does this text mean to me, I can keep the text at arm's length. But if I start asking what is a sex mean for me now I have some response that's called for.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;15;58;22  | Okay, what if I say in my just for example, in my small group, what if I say, What does this text mean for us? And I take it even beyond the two to the four, but I take it from the me to the US. Well, now you've built in the. Okay, let's all gather around the scripture. Let's all ask one another.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;16;19;16  | Where do we see this in the text? Let's all do the homework necessary. Let's all encourage each other as we gather around the Scripture, and then let's all say, how are we all implicated now together? Because how else do you apply Scripture but within it and out of the body of Christ? I think that's the that's both the check, but also sort of a launchpad.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;16;43;21  | It's kind of both. And to keep me from sort of crazy notions of what I see in the Scripture, but also it keeps me from saying I can just know this in my head and then I'm done, keeps me from both of those things.
Laurie Lind  | 00;16;55;24  | Yeah, you can only apply anything in, in community and.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;16;59;21  | Pretty much.
Laurie Lind  | 00;17;01;01  | You gave a such a good definition in your article for what you said could be a Christian constructivist view that was taken from your book, actually, which we do want to reference your 2018 faith in teaching you. You talked about Christian constructivism. Tell us what you said about that. And then kind of.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;17;23;22  | I said it's it's collaborative investigation. So it's what I just mentioned about doing this together more often than not. And that leads to practiced wisdom. So again, it's more than just what's in my head, but it's practiced wisdom. It's always under the triune God's care. So it places me in relationship with the Lord appropriately, and then it gives me that telos again.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;17;48;08  | It's for the sake of others. So the the key is I am not the end of my own learning as a Christian. I am not real. I'm not the end of anything. The Lord is the end of everything. I'm not the end of anything, but I am not certainly the end of my own learning. I'm not the end of my own investigation.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;18;08;23  | I'm not the end of my own salvation. It's all it's all to be received with gratitude and then stewarded well, responsibly to the glory of God and the well-being of my neighbor. So that's what I was trying to get at with. Well, what, what, what is it that this this approach to learning is supposed to be about? But then also, what's the fruit of it?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;18;39;25  | So it's kind of both end and you can't you can't really talk about one without the other because if you if you just kind of stop, then you're not done yet, I guess, as before.
Laurie Lind  | 00;18;47;02  | What about when we think about Jesus, we know he used so many different approaches to teaching groups and small groups. Do you see some examples of constructivism in his teaching?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;18;58;06  | Yeah, I mean, obviously really cautious. You can't you can't overlay a contemporary learning theory on Jesus. He transcends all that. Yes. But on the other hand, he knows he knows whom he's made. He knows how he's made us. He sometimes I think you could say he takes our agency more seriously than we do. I mean, he gives people for stuff to do.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;19;24;03  | He he when he commands people and he advise people, he expects response. He expects people to move and act and do stuff. And I think I think that's that's again, that's the upside of what the Constructivists are after that Jesus knows way better than any constructivist because he knows whom he's made. And he knows that when we act responsibly in his name, in the power of this Holy Spirit, that I would point to John 15 and John's account there of Jesus talking about fruit bearing and abiding in him, and there's going to be suffering, but there's also going to be joy.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;20;10;13  | I just I don't see how you can have joy and abundance and fruit bearing and everything else he talks about there. Jesus better be there somewhere because that's a whole that's a whole bunch of stuff going on at one place. And yet thanks be to God there is Jesus. I mean, the abiding in him is at the core, and that's what makes all of the other things possible.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;20;37;15  | And he would even say fruitful, I guess, without the the unnecessary overlay onto Jesus, which you can't you can't do that. But you can observe Jesus in his interactions with folks sitting home. My goodness, he he really takes people seriously. I mean, when he's engaging people, he's actually expecting them to engage back spine back to him, particularly. I just find that very encouraging.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;21;06;27  | I think I just appreciate how the Lord challenges, enables, encourages, expects. It's just like super engagement. It's just it's just great.
Laurie Lind  | 00;21;23;23  | And he has not only did he just teach like information transfer only when he did he talked, he'd spoke to people at great length, but then he gave his disciples assignments physically go, Oh.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;21;37;12  | Yeah, all the time.
Laurie Lind  | 00;21;38;13  | And water and catch a fish or throw the net on the other side, or you'll go see how many loaves of bread everybody like all of those things might add. Would that be a constructivist thing there? Adding the disciples might be adding meaning to what they heard Jesus say?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;21;54;00  | Well, yes, it was especially important because he knew, even though they did not, but he knew that there was coming a time when he would be gone, that he'd be studying the spirit and they were the plan. They were the plan? Yeah. As crazy as that would sound to them and to us. Right. They they were the plan.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;22;16;13  | It's not like they were plan B. They were the plan. So he knew that. He knew all of those conversations and all of that come with me and all that. Be with me and all that. Watch me and you do some stuff and then we'll debrief, rinse and repeat around and around and around. He knew that was really great.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;22;32;21  | Preparation for all was coming, even though they didn't. But they knew soon enough. I mean, after a relatively brief amount of time, they came to know soon enough, Oh, we're, we're now the arms and legs and feet and mouth Jesus. So he knew that. And I think he I think he you might say he taught with that in mind.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;22;56;14  | He modeled with that in mind.
Laurie Lind  | 00;22;58;10  | I'm sure, too. Like after he was gone, I was just reading an ax today about the apostles are suddenly speaking to someone and saying, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk. Jesus had talked about being the life and the way and the truth. And then they'd seen him be raised and heel and somehow they had both seen and heard and now they knew how to apply that.
Laurie Lind  | 00;23;25;06  | Now maybe I'm making too much of that. And I know there's that's maybe not the best example.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;23;30;06  | But I don't know. But but what the what the key was that they understood was they weren't Jesus, but they ministered in his name. And they also knew that if they strayed from ministering his name, it was all gone now. So they knew that they had been sent. They knew in whose name they ministered. They knew the commission they were on lots to learn from there in that process.
Laurie Lind  | 00;23;56;06  | So then also in your article, you wrote that discovery, learning and meaning Making and be Christ honoring complements to approaches of Grounded that are grounded in Scripture. Can you elaborate on that some more? What you mean by that.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;24;12;11  | Scripture Scriptures got to be first and foremost, it has to be the authority. It has to be the God has to be the the primary text. You might say, go back to putting this in learning lingo. Hmm. And and as you work that out and as you iterate that out and I should say quickly, iteration is is not repetition, iterate is repetition with reflection.
Laurie Lind  | 00;24;45;17  | Okay?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;24;46;19  | So iteration is really a key both to the constructivist and to the Christian, the constructivist, because you you do not expect to learn the thing, do the thing, understand the thing the first time. You have to try and try and get some feedback, try get some feedback, try get some feedback. That's how we learn how to do anything.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;25;13;05  | So it's it's baked in. It's baked into the method, it's baked into the theory, it's baked into human beings because that's how we've all learned how to do everything from walking to Bible study and everything in between. So repetition is a good place to start, but you can't stop there. You have to you have to add reflection. And that sort of turns repetition into iteration and iteration is this amazing process of not just doing the same thing over and over again, but infusing your tries, your attempts with feedback, reflection, prayer.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;25;54;11  | So the whole process becomes much thicker, much stronger than just I'm going to try the same thing over and over again.
Laurie Lind  | 00;26;01;09  | You also mentioned collaborative meaning making.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;26;05;00  | Huh?
Laurie Lind  | 00;26;05;18  | How do we incorporate that or how do we know when that is taking place in learning?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;26;10;24  | Yeah, so there's a has been for some time. There's a whole theory base that talks about collaborative meaning, making, and it often is in a group of theory and practice called Communities of Practice. So that when you get people to have common interests and some opportunity and some resource, they have some purpose and direction that can turn into a community of practice, or at least a community of learning that's pursuing something that they that they want to have in common, that they want to get to the end of.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;26;51;15  | So collaborative meaning making is often situated in that world. It doesn't only have to be in that world, but that's that's where it often finds itself. But back to our conversation earlier when we were talking about, say, small group Bible study, a general body life in the church. To me, that's a that's an obvious place to think about collaborative meaning making, you might say, in the name of Jesus around the scripture sent forth to figure out what we're doing in the world.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;27;23;28  | The second thing I'd say about that is it could mean for Christians, it could mean gathering folks together who have similar vocational interests and who want to explore together. Their professional identities are evidently increased, but their professional identities in a way that helps them understand well what does it mean that I'm a Christian and I'm thinking I go in my day job, I'm in the business world, I'm a nurse, I'm in construction, I'm doing whatever I'm doing.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;27;56;24  | So it could go there, too. If you go there, too.
Laurie Lind  | 00;28;00;17  | Well, then you know, all this theory in this philosophy and we so you sort of mentioned about just a real life context, but how do you really see constructivist understandings of learning, serving the purposes of the local church?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;28;16;15  | I think as we gather God's people and as we gather as God's people, we have amazing opportunities to help one another mature in Christ. Big picture at Worship Bible Study at work during the week in community. Jesus Christ is Lord everywhere, So every place is potential curriculum, I guess, is how you put it.
Laurie Lind  | 00;28;44;23  | Yeah.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;28;45;14  | For Jesus, the creation was curriculum because he made it all. So it was all in. Mm hmm. I think we can learn a lot from that. I think we can learn a lot from expanding our sanctify and imaginations to think about. Okay, well, what would be most helpful to us to spur one another on to love and good deeds, as the Scripture says, to spur one another on, to become mature in Christ?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;29;08;19  | I mean, a couple of things I thought about a particularly a local church. What if we had more occasion not just to study scripture together, which we do, but to study case studies in the Scripture together and study case studies in our everyday lives together with the mind of Christ that would bring the eternal truth of the Scripture to bear on my daily life.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;29;36;26  | I'm going into doing a series at my local church on conversations, which sounds pretty ordinary, and that's the point of conversations every day. Yeah. What does that mean? What does it mean to learn from the Scripture about how we talk and or the tone with which we talk? How do we address one another? What's our goal when we're talking?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;29;58;19  | Are we listening for advantage so I can win in my listening to understand, so I can serve. So something as mundane as conversation. Everyday life with coworkers, with family, with friends, with neighbors, with the Lord in prayer. We can help each other learn how to do that better because that's part of our maturity in Christ. So that's a pretty concrete example of what this could look like, I would say in our everyday life together of doing life together as Christians, as we're as we're developing growing suffering, as we're comforting one another, praying for one another, but also seeing the Lord at work in our midst as well.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;30;41;25  | Another thing I thought about was manuscript Bible studies and investigative Bible studies are something I'm old enough to remember. Yes. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know for the life of me. Why? Why? They just don't seem to be as utilized these days. That's a mystery to me. In my young adult years, I'll say that. And on into adulthood, they just kind of were the norm.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;31;13;15  | You invite your friends Christians and not gather around. Manuscript studies, really dive into the word. Everybody does homework. Sometimes the non-Christians that I was with, they'd be the better observers and the Christians. It's a word. You can't say that that's not in the Bible. And they're the ones trying to figure out what it means. They don't know what it means yet.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;31;32;05  | So I wonder if we could I wonder if we could revisit some of those options so that when people in God's kindness, he draws them to himself and they become Christians, they think this is normal. They think it's normal to huddle around this, the Scripture, because that's what they were doing before they were Christians. Strangely, with us. So they they continue to grow in Christ around the Scripture together.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;31;57;09  | They're never going to know a time when they weren't doing this. They were making meaning of the text with the spirit as the guide. Yes, that'd be terrific, wouldn't it?
Laurie Lind  | 00;32;08;14  | It would. Oh, well, then we have about 4 minutes left. Okay. In terms then, of equipping next generations of leaders like you are doing at seminary, and then trust comes alongside people, sometimes in quite non-formal ways. How do we best or how might we best incorporate constructivist thinking in how we're equipping men and women to be the next generation of leaders for the local church?
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;32;35;08  | Well, I guess I guess I want to recover more of a come with me both mindset and also activity. I personally just resolved a long time ago because of the end of my own discipleship that I enjoyed. And really I'm grateful for. I just went around a lot with the folks who poured themselves into me, and I learned a lot from just watching and listening and then debriefing and I back to what we observe with the Lord Jesus.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;33;13;19  | And he did a lot of that. Yes, He did a lot of come, come with me. The disciples do. Where are we going? Well, you're with me, so it's okay. We're not. We're not Jesus. No, but he goes worse.
Laurie Lind  | 00;33;25;28  | That's right.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;33;27;05  | So when we say, Come with me, it's just we're saying come with me as I go with Jesus. So there's a relational component. I hope that we can recover and even emphasize with younger folks. They are deeply desirous of relationships, not just with peers, as we're often told, but with older folk to. And I think adults really need to answer that call and come with me, learn from them to learn to weigh not just one way, but but be responsive and say come with me and have meals together and demonstrate hospitality to one another.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;34;09;25  | Recover the dining room table, not just out for a meal, which just that's fine too, but recover some of those. I would say long, long will serve practices and disciplines of body life, both for their benefit, but obviously also for our right.
Laurie Lind  | 00;34;30;29  | It is collaborative. We are going to learn from one another in any it is like that.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;34;36;01  | It is. We can learn a lot from the the cultures in the world that are collectivist, that can and collaborative kind of built in here, the West. And I think that's one way we can we can learn and demonstrate that we are learning and it's just for our benefit in the Lord's glory.
Laurie Lind  | 00;34;53;05  | Well, Dr. Guthrie, I want to thank you so much for your thoughts. I know we've barely scratched the surface, but people can read your article and they can find your book. We'll make sure that's all in our show notes. And bless you as you keep training men and women in ministry. And thank you for your time today.
Dr Donald Guthrie  | 00;35;09;23  | Thanks so much, Laurie.
Todd  | 00;35;11;19  | So what do you think? Do you agree with Dr. Guthrie? Do you see some ways to incorporate Constructivism into your leadership, your teaching, your facilitating? Talk it over with others and be sure to read Dr. Guthrie's article and other resources cited at the end of the article on our website. Thank you for listening to Entrust Equipping Leaders.