Peter Scazzero - The Emotionally Healthy Church, Expanded Edition: A Strategy for Discipleship That Actually Changes Lives

L ate one cold winter evening our phone rang. A young pastor I had known and admired for some years was unexpectedly calling. His voice was tense as he poured out the story of the crisis he was facing both in his marriage and his ministry. I listened, gave some words of encouragement and counsel, and prayed with him.

Before we hung up I said to him, I do not believe this is the end of your ministry. In spite of the pain you are going through, it may be the best thing that could happen to you at this point. Sometimes when we seem to be at the end, our real work is just beginning!

That young pastor was Peter Scazzero, and that crisis was a grace disguised. For out of it has come for Pete a stronger sense of his calling and identity, a deeper love in marriage, a healthier and more vital congregation, a fuller understanding of discipleship, and this fine and helpful book.

I hope The Emotionally Healthy Church will be widely read and taken to heart by many Christian pastors and leaders. I believe Peter Scazzero is on target when he writes that the overall health of any church or ministry depends primarily on the emotional and spiritual health of its leadership.

We know healthy churches need healthy leaders. What is fresh is Scazzeros insistence that this must include emotional health. Leaders have long been urged to maintain their spiritual vitality, physical exercise, and intellectual growth. But less emphasis has been placed on emotional well-being.

Emotions were discounted in much of the evangelical teaching I heard growing up. We were taught about facts, faith, and feelingsin that order. Faith was to be based on the facts of the Christian message (an essential emphasis, to be sure), but we should not rely on feelings because they were unreliable, secondary, and untrustworthy. Certainly there is truth here. Feelings do go up and down mine certainly do! But while our emotions may be changeable, they are not unimportant!

The Bible does not overlook the emotional quotient of our humanity. Its characters Josephs brothers in their sibling rivalry, Moses in his anger, Paul in his tearful longing for a visit from Timothy, his son in the faith were real people with real emotions. Our Lord himself had a powerful emotional life as a man who could weep in sorrow, be strong in anger, and yet experience the fullness of joy.

Part of our reluctance to deal honestly and openly with our emotions has been an inadequate view of the incarnation. We affirm that our Lord Jesus was God in the flesh, while deep down we assume that Jesus human nature was not really real but a kind of masquerade.

The Bible also helps us to understand ourselves, and that is what Peter Scazzero has learned and shares with us, both out of the pain he and his wife, Geri, have experienced, and through his rereading of Scripture.

As I read The Emotionally Healthy Church, I could identify with so much of the material. I have lived similar experiences and times of emotional testing. So have most of the young pastors and Christian leaders with whom I have spiritual mentoring conversations. Peter Scazzeros story of growing through pain into personal and congregational health through the Spirit of Christ holds hope for all of us!

Leighton Ford, President
Leighton Ford Ministries
Charlotte, North Carolina