Category Archives: Planning & Decision Making

The 4 Questions of Emotionally Healthy Supervision

Every year at our Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference I am asked: “How is supervision in an emotionally healthy church different? What makes it distinct?” In emotionally healthy teams, role expectations are openly talked about and agreed upon. We evaluate how we are doing. But that is not enough. How people care for their inner lives is also important. The question is, “How important?” The answer is: “Very important.” Minimally transformed leaders will always result in minimally transformed teams doing minimally transforming ministry. How could we expect it to be any other way? As a result, there are four areas that we ask about on a regular basis: 1. How is your walk with Jesus? In other words, tell me about your rhythms of being with God and doing for God. How are you living out of your Rule of Life in this season? How has God been coming to you? I was so blessed. Read more.

Handing Over Power

I have had multiple conversations these past few weeks with pastors and leaders about the importance of healthy transitions, particularly as it relates to succession. Why? I am passionate about Jesus and the proclamation of His glory to the next generation. Over the decades I have repeatedly seen the destructive consequences of leaders who hand over power poorly. Andy Crouch says it best: “It is hard to think of many things that do more damage to an organization than leaders who have no plan for how they will hand over power…When leaders do not actively plan for the end of their power, and when we who are led by them allow them to indulge in fantasies of unending influence, they are idols, no matter how well disguised” (Strong and Weak, IVP 2016). I describe my own 4½-year interior succession process in the final 17 pages of The Emotionally Healthy Leader. Almost three years have. Read more.

Where are You on the Wise/Foolish Spectrum?

We classify people in different ways – by race, the language they speak, economic class, age, geography, educational level, even personality type. God classifies people in the book of Proverbs as mockers, fools, or the wise. Where might you be on the Wise/Foolish spectrum today? Mockers (or scoffers) are referred to 17x in Proverbs. They are extremely proud, shameless, and foolish. These are abusers and dictators who throw people away (e.g. Hitler/Stalins). Proverbs acknowledges there are those few “evil” people that, while not beyond redemption, are particularly unteachable. They are the extreme end of the foolish spectrum. Fools (or the simple) are mentioned 65x. This is the great mass of people. These are the naïve, the easily influenced, the impulsive, and the impatient. Fools wander into messes without thinking because they prefer to not do the hard work of thinking things through or asking hard questions. The wise (or prudent) is God’s goal for. Read more.

The Emotionally Healthy Leader: More Than a Book

I wrote The Emotionally Healthy Leader with one primary goal in mind – to profoundly transform the leadership culture in our churches. Why? Long-term, sustainable, and effective mission in the world requires a deep spirituality which informs the way we: build cultures and teams, engage in planning and decision making, handle power and boundaries, and do endings/new beginnings. For this to take place, our leadership teams need time to talk about the core concepts from The Emotionally Healthy Leader for our specific leadership contexts. Towards that end I wrote a free EH Leader Study and Discussion Guide and now have recorded 3-8 minute video introductions on each of the chapters as you launch into the discussion of the book. (These have been immensely helpful for us in our New Life Staff Team discussions). Introduction to the EH Leader Chapter 1: The Emotionally Unhealthy Leader The Inner Life Chapter 2: Face Your Shadow Chapter. Read more.

EH Leader Podcast: Endings and New Beginnings

Every new year marks an ending and a new beginning. In fact, embracing endings in order to receive new beginnings is one of the fundamental tasks of the spiritual life–and this is especially true for Christian leaders. Join Pete Scazzero and Rich Villodas in this month’s EH Leader Podcast as they look deeper into this central leadership theme. Click the video below to watch or the link to listen to the audio file. LISTEN HERE

An Invitation from Pete Scazzero

We are so excited for this year’s EH Leadership Conference (along with the one day Pre-Conference –The Leader’s Marriage April 19, 2016). This is our premier training event, offering a broad, yet deep, taste of EHS as it has developed at New Life Fellowship over a 20-year period. We had a significant year of new learnings in how EHS answers the great problem confronting the church–people’s lives are not being deeply transformed in our churches. Because of our commitment to high quality training, we limit the Main Conference to 350 participants and the Pre-Conference to 120 people (60 couples). We believe God may have you among that group. Pray and ask for His direction about this coming April. Super Early Bird Registration rates end November 30th. Register HERE.

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