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Tag Archives: Emotionally Healthy Leadership

Waiting on God for God

One of the turning points in my leadership happened 12 years ago while spending a week praying the Offices at a Trappist monastery. My prayer life had been marked by waiting on God FOR “THINGS” –e.g. leaders for specific ministries, creative strategies, breakthroughs, key donors to support the work, healings, growth in our church, family blessings, etc. At that point I moved to waiting on God FOR GOD. It turned out to be life-changing – both for my relationship with Jesus and my leadership. While praying for those “things” is good and biblical, I realized that my will was inseparably mixed with God’s will. The lines between the two were blurry. I always seemed to need something else from him. During that week with the Trappists, I sensed from God an invitation to seek his face (Ps. 27:4) and wait for Him alone. Out of that, I trusted, He would reveal himself and his. Read more.

The Price of Low Differentiation

Differentiation is hard. Not differentiating is even harder. Differentiation involves remaining connected to people and yet not having your reaction or behavior determined by them. Our primary task, like Jesus, is to calmly differentiate our “true self” from the demands and voices around us, discerning the vision, pace, and mission the Father has uniquely given us. Jesus, of course, models for us a 100% differentiated person. Engaging this challenging, interior work with God is great. The price for not doing so is even greater. The following are my top ten costs: Our church, ministry, or organization slowly declines. Our resistance to make unpopular decisions with ineffective people and programs limits our ability to do the mission God has called us to. We damage the community. A lack of clarity around expectations and roles permeates the community. Disappointments and frustrations are not talked about honestly and respectfully. The wrong people exercise power and leadership. In. Read more.

Measuring “Success”

Measuring ministry impact with numbers is biblical. The book of Acts uses numbers to describe the impact of the gospel — about 3,000 baptized (Acts 2:41), about 5,000 believers (Acts 4:4), crowds coming to faith (Acts 5:14). We have a whole book in the Bible called Numbers. So, in the context of the church, it is good to measure things like attendance, baptisms, membership, number of small groups, and financial giving. The problem comes when that is all we measure. Measuring deep, beneath the surface transformation in people’s lives is also critically important – if not more important. (Consider Paul, Gal. 4:19, Jesus mentoring the 12). The specifics of these internal markers will differ from ministry to ministry and from context to context. The following are several examples we set to measure at New Life Fellowship Church: Each leader at New Life will develop his or her relationship with God by spending ten to. Read more.

Success

Success is first and foremost doing what God has asked us to do, doing it his way, and in his timing. Years ago, when I was first wrestling with redefining success, I imagined what it might be like to come before God’s throne at the end of my earthly life and say, “Here, God, is what I have done for you. New Life now has 10,000 people.” Then he would respond, “Pete, I love you, but that was not what I gave you to do. That task was for a pastor in another part of New York.” Have you ever considered that your ministry, organization, or team may be growing and yet actually failing? Think with me for a moment about some of God’s faithful and, hence, most successful leaders: Jesus said of John the Baptist, “Among those born of women none is greater than John” (Luke 7:28). Yet, if we were to create. Read more.

The Core Question of Emotionally Healthy Preaching Rich Villodas (with Pete Scazzero)

Rich Villodas, who is now Lead Pastor of New Life Fellowship, led one of the workshops at our recent Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference on “Emotionally Healthy Preaching.” Once again, it made a large impact on all who attended. One of Rich’s greatest gifts to the larger body of Christ is, I believe, in the art of preaching. The following is the core of what he shared: Preaching is foremost not about preaching. It’s about a life with God; a life of integrity, out of which we speak. This is the core of emotionally healthy preaching. Like many pastors and preachers, I love the art and science of preaching. I work hard for stories and illustrations that make biblical content accessible to our congregation. I work hard to understand the text exegetically. I think critically about how a passage of Scripture applies in our NYC context. All of these things are important. In addition to. Read more.

Emotionally Healthy Culture and Team Building

At last week’s Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference, I offered, for the first time, a workshop entitled: “Culture and Team Building.” This is one of the chapters in the upcoming Emotionally Healthy Leader book, but I was taken aback by the incredibly large response of participants. The following is a brief summary of the four characteristics of emotionally healthy culture and team building that I shared: Work Performance and Personal Spiritual Formation are Inseparable. We are not simply concerned with our team’s ability to do their tasks well and fulfill their job description – be it paid of unpaid. We are deeply concerned if they are growing spiritually in Jesus. It is the first question we ask when we meet with them. And we invest time, energy, and money in their personal growth and formation. The Elephants in the Room are Acknowledged and Confronted. An “elephant in the room” refers to an inappropriate or immature. Read more.