Tag Archives: spiritual formation

Go Slowly. Study Deeply. The EH Leader Study Guide.

I wrote The Emotionally Healthy Leader slowly – very slowly. Like good wine, it aged over an eight-year period. During that time I carefully chronicled my mistakes, my struggles, my successes, and my new learnings of applying EHS to the building of a growing church, organization, and team. After twenty years of leading at New Life, I grew tired of relying on unmodified business practices to navigate key leadership tasks. I discovered that simply grafting secular branches into our spiritual root system often caused us to bear the wrong kind of fruit. The Emotionally Healthy Leader breaks new ground in practically applying a deep inner life with Jesus to key leadership tasks as planning, team building, boundaries, endings, and new beginnings. It offers the opportunity to revolutionize the way we lead others. To actually make such a paradigm shift, however, requires we create space to wrestle with the content. For this reason, I dedicated. Read more.

You Know You’re Not Doing Endings Well When…

Why are endings and transitions so poorly handled in our ministries, organizations, and teams? Why do we often miss God’s new beginnings, and the new work He is doing? We miss seeing what is ahead in part because we fail to apply a central theological truth — that death is a necessary prelude to resurrection. To bear long-term fruit for Christ, we need to recognize that some things must die so something new can grow. If we do not embrace this reality, we will tend to dread endings as signs of failure rather than opportunities for something new. Use the list of statements that follow to briefly assess your approach to endings and new beginnings: You Know You’re Not Doing Endings and New Beginnings Well When . . . You can’t stop ruminating about something from the past. You use busyness as an excuse to avoid taking time to grieve endings and losses or to allow for the. Read more.

The Slow, Hard Ways of God

God’s kingdom always appears small, always appears insignificant, and always appears powerless. God’s ways are always slow. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches. Matthew 13:31-32 Jesus’ life and ministry modeled the slow, hard ways of God. How can we expect it to be any different for us? I was asked, after returning a few days ago, from a one-week trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil: “What was the biggest thing you learned on your trip?” “God’s ways are slow… and hard,” I responded. I surprised even myself with my answer. Our trip was rich, fruitful, and powerful. We partner with Willow Creek Brazil and their gifted staff in bringing EHS. 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.

A Personal Message from Pete Scazzero

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