Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Peter Scazzero is the founder of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York City, a large, multiracial church with more than seventy-three countries represented. After serving as senior pastor for twenty-six years, Pete now serves as a teaching pastor/pastor at large. He is the author of two bestselling books―The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He is also the author of The EHS Discipleship Course and two devotional books. Pete and his wife, Geri, are the founders of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, a groundbreaking ministry that equips churches in a deep, beneath-the-surface spiritual formation paradigm. For more information, visit emotionallyhealthy.org or connect with Pete on Twitter @petescazzero.

Warren Bird (PhD, Fordham University) is vice president of research for the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA.org). He draws from twenty years of experience of pastoring and seminary teaching. He is an award - winning researcher and writer, having co-authored more than thirty books for church leaders. He and his college sweetheart wife live just outside of New York City.

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The Emotionally Healthy Church, Updated and Expanded Edition, the newly updated and expanded edition of the groundbreaking bestseller The Emotionally Healthy Church, features a fuller, deeper look at the six principles contained in the original and includes a crucial, additional chapter: Slow Down to Lead with Integrity.New Life Fellowship in Queens, New York, had it all: powerful teaching, dynamic ministries, an impressive growth rate, and a vision to do great works for God. Things looked good--but beneath the surface, circumstances were more than just brewing. They were about to boil over, forcing Peter Scazzero to confront needs in his church and himself that went deeper than he'd ever imagined. What he learned about the vital link between emotional health, relational depth, and spiritual maturity can shed new light on painful problems in your own church.In this revised and expanded edition of his Gold Medallion Award-winning book, Scazzero shares refreshing new insights and a different and challenging slant on what it takes to lead your congregation to wholeness and maturity in Christ.Our churches are in trouble, says Scazzero. They are filled with people who are• unsure how to biblically integrate anger, sadness, and other emotions• defensive, incapable of revealing their weaknesses• threatened by or intolerant of different viewpoints• zealous about ministering at church but blind to their spouses' loneliness at home• so involved in “serving” that they fail to take care of themselves• prone to withdraw from conflict rather than resolve itSharing from New Life Fellowship's painful but liberating journey, Scazzero reveals exactly how the truth can and does make you free--not just superficially, but deep down. This expanded edition of The Emotionally Healthy Church not only takes the original six principles further and deeper, but also adds a seventh crucial principle. You'll acquire knowledge and tools that can help you and others:• look beneath the surface of problems• break the power of past wounds, failures, sins, and circumstances• live a life of brokenness and vulnerability• recognize and honor personal limitations and boundaries• embrace grief and loss• make incarnation your model to love others• slow down to lead with integrityThis new edition shares powerful insights on how contemplative spirituality can help you and your church slow down--an integral key to spiritual and emotional health.The Emotionally Healthy Church, Updated and Expanded Edition includes story after story of people at New Life whose lives have been changed by the concepts in this book. Open these pages and find out how your church can turn a new corner on the road to spiritual maturity.

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The Emotionally Healthy Church

Zondervan

Contents

Forewords................................................................................7Introduction.............................................................................13Chapter 1 As Go the leaders, So Goes the Church.........................................20Chapter 2 Something Is Desperately Wrong................................................38Chapter 3 Discipleship's Next Frontier - Emotional Health...............................51Chapter 4 Inventory of Spiritual/Emotional Maturity.....................................60Chapter 5 Principle 1: look beneath the Surface.........................................71Chapter 6 Principle 2: Break the Power of the Past......................................90Chapter 7 Principle 3: live in Brokenness and Vulnerability.............................114Chapter 8 Principle 4: Receive the Gift of limits.......................................137Chapter 9 Principle 5: Embrace Grieving and loss........................................159Chapter 10 Principle 6: Make Incarnation Your Model for loving Well.....................180Chapter 11 Principle 7: Slow Down to lead with Integrity................................201Chapter 12 Next Steps into the New Frontier of Discipleship.............................217New Life Fellowship Church Pastoral Staff - Rule of Life.................................221Endnotes.................................................................................227Bibliography.............................................................................233Acknowledgments..........................................................................235

Chapter One

* * *

The overall health of any church or ministry depends primarily on the emotional and spiritual health of its leadership. In fact, the key to successful spiritual leadership has much more to do with the leader's internal life than with the leader's expertise, gifts, or experience.

It took me a long time to realize that yet another leadership seminar or more information was not the key to "successful" church leadership. In fact, my journey toward leading an emotionally and spiritually healthy church was not triggered in a seminar or book. Instead, it was brought to a head with a very painful conversation at home.

My Wife Couldn't Take It Anymore

"Pete, I'm leaving the church," my wife Geri had muttered quietly.

I sat still, too stunned to respond.

"I can't take any more of this stress-the constant crises," she continued.

Geri had been more than patient. I had brought home constant pressure and tension from church, year after year. Now the woman I had promised to love just as Christ loved the church was exhausted.

We had experienced eight unrelenting years of stress.

"I'm not doing it anymore," she concluded. "This church is no longer life for me. It is death."

When a church member says, "I'm leaving the church," most pastors don't feel very good. But when your wife of nine years says it, your world is turned upside down.

We were in the bedroom. I remember the day well.

"Pete, I love you, but I'm leaving the church," she summarized very calmly. "I no longer respect your leadership."

I was visibly shaken and didn't know what to say or do. I felt shamed, alone, and angry.

I tried raising my voice to intimidate her: "That is out of the question," I bellowed. "All right, so I've made a few mistakes."

But she calmly continued, "It's not that simple. You don't have the guts to lead-to confront the people who need to be confronted. You don't lead. You're too afraid that people will leave the church. You're too afraid of what they'll think about you."

I was outraged.

"I'm getting to it!" I yelled defensively. "I'm working on it." (For the last two years, I really had been trying, but somehow still wasn't up to it.)

"Good for you, but I can't wait any more," she replied.

There was a long pause of silence. Then she uttered the words that changed the power balance in our marriage permanently: "Pete, I quit."

It is said that the most powerful person in the world is one who has nothing to lose. Geri no longer had anything to lose. She was dying on the inside, and I hadn't listened to or responded to her calls for help.

She softly continued, "I love you, Pete. But the truth is, I would be happier separated than married. At least then you would have to take the kids on weekends. Then maybe you'd even listen!"

"How could you say such a thing?" I complained. "Don't even think about it."

She was calm and resolute in her decision. I was enraged. A good Christian wife, married to a Christian (and a pastor I may add), does not do this. I understood at that moment why a husband could fly into a rage and kill the wife he loves.

She had asserted herself. She was forcing me to listen.

I wanted to die. This was going to require me to change!

The Beginnings of This Mess

How did we get to this point?

Eight years previously, my wife and I had a vision to begin planting a church among the working classes in Queens, New York City, that would develop leaders to plant other churches both in New York City and around the world.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I had a vision and Geri followed. Wasn't that the biblical way large decisions were supposed to be made in a marriage?

Now, four children later, she was battle weary and wanted a life and a marriage. By this time I agreed. The problem was my sense of responsibility to build the church, and to do so for other people. I had little energy left over to parent our children or to enjoy Geri. I had even less energy to enjoy a "life," whatever that was! Even when I was physically present, such as at a soccer game for one of our daughters, my mind was usually focused on something related to the church.

I remember wondering, Am I supposed to be living so miserably and so pressured in order that other people can experience joy in God? It sure felt that way.

Weeks had turned into months. Months into years. The years had become almost a decade, and the crisis was now in full bloom. The sober reality was that I had made little time during those nine years for the joys of parenting and marriage. I was too preoccupied with the incessant demands of pastoring a church. (How well I now know that I will never get those years back.)

Jesus does call us to die to ourselves. "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). The problem was that we had died to the wrong things. We mistakenly thought that dying to ourselves for the sake of the gospel meant dying to self-care, to feelings of sadness, to anger, to grief, to doubt, to struggles, to our healthy dreams and desires, and to passions we had enjoyed before our marriage.

Geri has always loved the outdoors and nature. She values her large, extended family. She loves the field of recreation, creating opportunities for people to have fun. There was rarely time for those pleasures.

Workaholics for God

We were very busy for God. Our lives were filled with...