Category Archives: Stillness

Second-Hand Spirituality

The vast majority of people in our churches have a second-hand spirituality, i.e. they live off the spirituality of others. Because people attend our weekend worship services, participate in our programs, give money and serve, we assume they are in a vital personal relationship of loving union with Jesus. We assume wrong. They are not. Ask the people you serve about their time with Jesus each day: “How often do you meet with Him around Scripture and prayer? What do you do, and for how long? How might silence, solitude, Sabbath, spiritual companionship, and study fit into your life?” Ask for specifics. You are in for a shock. The world has changed dramatically. We have underestimated the magnitude of information overload, the moral decline of Western culture, and the impact of the Internet/social media in altering our brain circuits. “Dozens of studies by neurobiologists point to the same conclusion: when we go online, we. Read more.

Good Friday: A Time to Embrace Our Endings

On Good Friday we remember that at the cross Jesus wipes away our sins, becoming a global magnet that draws the whole world to Himself. Good Friday also reminds me that embracing endings (deaths) and new beginnings (resurrections) is the pattern of life for every Christian. Nothing new takes place without an ending. A real ending—a final death—often feels like disintegration, falling apart, a coming undone. It feels that way because that is what death is. It is an ending that requires walking through a completely dark tunnel, not knowing when or if any light will come again. If we embrace these losses for the severe mercies they are, God does a profound work in us and through us in ways that are similar to what the apostle Paul describes as “death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (2 Cor. 4:12). As a person who tends to resist. Read more.

The Emotionally Unhealthy Leader

This is the first of 9 podcasts we will be doing on The Emotionally Healthy Leader book that will be released on June 30th. It is entitled – “The Emotionally Unhealthy Leader.” Each of these podcasts will offer a summary of the critical points for leadership teams to discuss of the selected theme. Don’t worry, we are not changing the name of our podcast! We do want to address some critical issues among leaders though as we must first understand what makes up an Emotionally UnHealthy Leader so that we can work to become Emotionally Healthy Leaders. Pete Scazzero and Rich Villodas dig into this great conversation discussing much of the foundation of Pete’s soon to be released book, Emotionally Healthy Leader. Click the video image below to watch the interview on YouTube or the button below to listen on iTunes. Enjoy. -Pete

Characteristics of the Emotionally Unhealthy Leader

Before writing The Emotionally Healthy Leader (Zondervan, July, 2015), I was challenged to distill the core qualities of an emotionally unhealthy leader. I landed on four: They Have Low Self-Awareness Emotionally unhealthy leaders tend to be unaware of what is going on inside them.. They ignore emotion-related messages their body may send—fatigue, stress-induced illness, weight gain, ulcers, headaches, or depression. They avoid reflecting on their fears, sadness, or anger, and fail to consider how God might be trying to communicate with them through these “difficult” emotions. Moreover, they struggle to articulate the reasons for their emotional triggers, i.e. overreactions in the present rooted in difficult experiences from their past, and they remain unaware of how issues from their family of origin have impacted who they are today. This lack of emotional awareness also extends to their personal and professional relationships. In fact, they are often blind to the emotional impact they have on others,. Read more.

The Consequences of Not Slowing Down

One of the themes we will be talking about at The Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference on April 22-23 (click here for registering for the free Live Stream) will be the importance of slowing down for loving union with Jesus. When we fail to slow down for loving union, sooner or later we will reap the consequences—and they are serious, both for ourselves and for those we aim to serve. You Can’t Do God’s Work Your Way without Paying a Steep Price Moses, along with his brother and executive pastor, Aaron, worked and waited for almost forty years to enter to the Promised Land. Their patience was repeatedly tested to the limit by a seemingly endless barrage of complaints. When the people raise a cry about their lack of food and water and accuse Moses of bringing them out into the desert to die, Moses is livid. He loses his cool and strikes the rock. Read more.

Why Transformation Takes So Long!

Last week at our two-day EHS Consultant Training, Wendy Seidman shared Bloom’s taxonomy of how people learn to help us understand why it takes so long for individuals and church/ministry cultures to “get” EHS. The following is her adaptation of Bloom’s classic work on the process people need to move through to really “get” something like EHS: 1- Aware. People hear about EHS for the first time (e.g. Sabbath, slowing down, past’s impact on the present, grieving, learning to feel). 2- Ponder. People think about it, trying to understand or sort through issues as they gather more information. At this point they don’t have a clear inclination for or against it. (e.g. They continue reading, listen to messages, go through the EHS Course, learn a few EHS Skills, talk about Sabbath with others). 3- Value. People think it’s important, find value in it, and commit to it, saying, “I really believe in this EHS. Read more.

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