How to Succeed with Sabbath: Practical Steps for Busy Leaders

A Free Webinar April 10th at 2pm ET

April Webinar

Discover Sabbath Delight

A Free eBook Exploring the 4 Practices of a Biblical Sabbath

eBook

Personal Assessment

How Emotionally Healthy Are You?
Take a free 15 minute personal assessment now!

*We respect your privacy by not sharing or selling your email address.

Personal Assessment

Close
loading
Why Low Differentiation Kills Teams
Posted on: Tuesday April 01, 2025
00:00
00:00
Download

👉 Take the free EHD Maturity Assessment: emotionallyhealthy.org/mature

—-------------------------------

Most pastors and leaders are trained to preach, strategize, and serve—but few are ever taught how to lead from a deeply anchored, differentiated self. And yet, this is the foundation for every healthy team and ministry.

In today’s episode, I unpack one of the most overlooked killers of team health and mission: low differentiation. Drawing from Family Systems Theory, the leadership of David and Jesus, and my own hard-earned lessons over decades, I’ll share four critical reasons why low differentiation sabotages your team—and what you can do about it.

When leaders overfunction, avoid hard conversations, or build their identity on others’ approval, it fractures their soul and destabilizes the team. But when you lead from a solid self—rooted in God, not the demands around you—you raise the maturity level of everyone around you.

This is the crucible of spiritual leadership: becoming yourself in Christ, for the sake of others.

Listen in. It may change how you lead forever.

 

Archives:
Wednesday September 05, 2018

Leadership in the name of Jesus is from the bottom up, not a grasping or controlling of circumstances and people. It is leading out of failure and pain, questions and struggles — a serving that lets go. It is a noticeably different way of life from what is commonly modeled in the world and, unfortunately, in many churches. Listen to this podcast about God’s strange pathway of living and leading out of brokenness and vulnerability.

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday August 28, 2018

In the gospel of John the word "belief" can best be understood as "relax in" or "trust." How do we get there? Listen to Pete’s message based on John 6:16-21 and learn to relax. 

00:00
00:00
Download
Monday August 20, 2018

Being a leader is knowing what to do next, why it’s important, and then bringing the right resources to bear that will make it happen. And yet a core part of discipleship is being able to say, "I don't understand, Lord." Pete shares why it’s necessary for each of us to go through “Dark Nights of the Soul” where we don’t know what’s going, because these are moments where God pulls us into deeper discipleship with Him.

00:00
00:00
Download
Monday August 13, 2018

Pete shares how the truths of 1 Corinthians 13 and learning to really love others impacted him personally, radically changing his leadership and the discipleship culture at the church.

 

 

 

00:00
00:00
Download
Monday August 06, 2018

Taken from a message given at the 2017 Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference, Pete looks at three aspects that make John the Baptist an unlikely but extraordinary model of leadership.

 

 

 

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday July 31, 2018

It is easy to lead for God without listening to him. The word listen or hear is found more than 1500 times in the Bible. That is why the most important question every one of us must ask throughout our days is: “God, how are you coming to me, what might you want to say?” In this podcast, Pete gives specific examples of how he regularly applies this question to different areas of his life and discernment process.

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday July 24, 2018

Pete discusses a number of powerful truths around Jesus’ command: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? (Matt. 5:43-45).

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday July 17, 2018

Pete introduces the ladder of integrity, a simple yet powerful tool to be used when we are feeling angry, frustrated, or hurt in a relationship or a situation.

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday July 10, 2018

Living with integrity, whether you're in your twenties or seventies, is no small task. In this podcast, Pete lays the foundation for a leader’s integrity by discussing four critical areas: integrity with God, integrity with yourself, integrity in your marriage / singleness, integrity in your leadership.

00:00
00:00
Download
Tuesday July 03, 2018

The first crisis the early church confronted was a crisis of integrity. Pete speaks on the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11 and shares why integrity is so important to leadership.

00:00
00:00
Download