Study Leave Book Reflection #4

The last of the four books I read on Study Leave. This one was more personal than the other three, but as I will share with you next week, it was the capstone set of ideas for the entire three weeks of spending time with God and studying. Props to my friends who have been telling me to read this, and props again to Dr. Charles for making it a part of our LLC reading this next year.

As always, I'll be happy to send the full reflection to anyone who wants it, and thanks to the folks who have requested other reviews. Enjoy!

Reflections on The Emotionally Healthy Church

Author: Peter Scazzero 223 pages. Published by Zondervan

Summary:

Scazzero is a pastor in Queens, New York who discovered that the training he received to be a pastor did not prepare him for personal emotional health, nor did it prepare him to lead people to real spiritual health which includes emotional health. The basis of the book is his own journey to discover the need for emotional health in his spiritual life, and how that has transformed his ministry and his church. The premise is that without emotional health, our spiritual growth as Christians is stunted. When we don’t allow God to work on our emotional health, we miss a portion of the grace, healing and wholeness that Jesus wants to work out in our lives. The five principles for emotional health that Scazzero puts forth are 1) Look beneath the surface, 2) Break the power of the past, 3) Live in brokenness and vulnerability, 4) Receive the gift of limits, and 5) embrace grieving and loss. The key is that emotional health begins in the life of the senior pastor, then needs to be practiced and mentored into the lives of the staff, leaders, volunteers and then onto the congregation of a church.