Mental Health: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Pete Scazzero

Show Notes

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It’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. Pete Scazzero helps us discern which of the top ten symptoms of emotional un-healthiness are present in your life.

 

Watch the video of Session One

Get information on the Study Guide and Day-by-Day Book

 

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Creators & Guests

Guest

Pete Scazzero

Pete Scazzero, after leading New Life Fellowship Church for 26 years, co-founded Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, a groundbreaking ministry transforming church culture that multiplies deeply changed leaders and disciples for the sake of Jesus’ mission in the world. Pete hosts the top ranked, Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast and is the author of a number of bestselling books, including The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. Pete and his wife Geri also developed The Emotionally Healthy Discipleship Course (Part 1 and 2), a ground-breaking Course being used by over 1400 churches in North America along with many others around the world. His books and materials have been translated in over 25 different languages.

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Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.

First Listens Season 2: Episode 3
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
By Pete Scazzero

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Welcome to Study Gateway’s First Listens, here you get first listens of the first sessions on Study Gateway so you can find your next video Bible study.

Hi there! I’m your host, Shelley Leith, and we’re in Season 2 of First Listens, where we’re hearing teaching on the topic of mental health. I’m bringing you sessions from seven Bible studies that deal with different aspects of mental health. So far we’ve heard from Chris Hodges on depression in Out of the Cave, and Karen Ehman on people pleasing in When Making Others Happy Makes You Miserable. In future episodes we’ll hear Rebekah Lyons, Gary Thomas, Jennie Allen, and Lecrae. These respected pastors and authors have all published their studies with HarperChristian Resources, and we stream their videos on Study Gateway. Once you have a taste of these first sessions, you’ll know – I’ve gotta have more of that one! And that’s a great way to figure out what your next Bible study is going to be!

This week’s episode is from one of my favorite Bible studies of all time Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero. The reason I love this one so much is that in every session there is so much self-discovery. For me, anyway, I learned more about myself and found so many areas where I was stuck and didn’t know it than with any other study. Today, we’re going to hear the famous story that started it all, the story of when Pete’s wife Geri quit the church – the church where Pete was the lead pastor! Here’s Session One, the Problem of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] PETE SCAZZERO: I want to welcome you to the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Course. This is part one of a larger discipleship journey that we call Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. We're so glad you're here and pray the next several weeks will enable you to walk through a door into a very alive, very powerful, very freeing relationship with Jesus Christ. One that will serve you the rest of your life. This course has helped tens of thousands of people move from a shallow Christianity to a deep, transformative relationship with God, and with themselves and others. I pray it does the same for you.
The church is in deep trouble today. We have many people who are stuck at a wall in their walk with Christ, and have slipped into a spiritual coma, not flourishing or maturing very much in their relationship with Jesus. I experienced this, myself, after 17 years of being a Christian, even after having planted a church, here in New York City. I had an incredible conversion to the grace and free love of God at 19 years old, as a student. I plunged into learning all the classic spiritual disciplines. Scripture study, prayer, God, community, global missions, et cetera.

I eventually graduated, taught high school English for a year, and then went on staff to work with university students with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. From there, I went to seminary, then spent a year in Costa Rica, learning Spanish. Moved back to New York City and planted a church called New Life Fellowship, in 1987. The church grew rapidly, and within a few years, we planted four other churches, one of which, was in Spanish.

We did discipleship the way most churches do today, connecting people relationally to a small group or ministry, challenging them to serve, inviting them to give of their time and talents. But by year six and seven, I became discouraged when I realized people in our church were only changing superficially. We seem to be recycling the same problems. There was a disconnect. It seemed that some people got zealous for God, but even with all that Bible, remained defensive, angry, judgmental, difficult to be around. I tried every discipleship strategy I knew. Adding more Bible classes, prayer meetings, more emphasis on spiritual warfare, a greater focus on the Holy Spirit and the power of God.

At the same time, I was stuck in my own wall. I was unhappy and frustrated, overworked. I had a dream and vision of what God was going to do, but I wondered, where is all the joy? I felt like I was winning the world and losing my soul. Then, our Spanish congregation had a split, and I found myself depressed and angry, with resentments I couldn't get rid of. And on top of that, Geri, my wife, was unhappy, and felt like a single mom raising our four daughters. This finally culminated in her quitting the church, and I was the lead pastor. Yes.

But it was in this crucible of pain that God met Geri and me. We got some help, and I realized I was an emotional infant, trying to raise up mothers and fathers of the faith, with large parts of my own interior life untouched by Jesus. It became starkly clear to us that emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable, that it's not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.
As Geri and I began integrating emotional health into our discipleship, we discovered that sinful patterns in our families, going back three to four generations were keeping us from living free and moving forward with God. We also realized our need to slow down our lives to be with Jesus. We recognize that our life of being with God had to be sufficient to sustain our work for God. As we experienced our own transformation, we began to bring this to our church, and it was unlike anything we had ever done or seen before. It is not an overstatement to say it unleashed a revolution in people's lives, as they discovered a life with God, liberating, joyful, and incredibly fruitful.

Let me bear testimony, here. The last 25, 26 years of my life have been the best personally, maritally, as a follower of Jesus, as a husband, father, as a pastor, and I pray that you might have the same experience. Throughout these years, we have been doing research and development, refining this material with churches around the world, and have now put it into this two-part course. As you will see, this is not a program or a quick-fix solution. Rather, it is a way of life with God, a way of life with yourself, and one that will impact all your relationships.

Our goal is simple. To introduce you to a large, biblical framework so you can mature as a follower of Jesus, and thus, move out into the world for him, out of the unique person God has made you to be. This material that we will be covering in these sessions is meant to challenge you. In fact, my hope is that the concepts we will be bringing will rock your world, in a good way, of course, in terms of what it means to follow Jesus. We will be looking at some significant missing elements of our discipleship.

In session one, today, we'll be looking at the problem of emotionally unhealthy spirituality by looking at Saul, and session two, we'll look at knowing yourself, that you may know God, looking at David. Session three, we'll look at going back to go forward, looking at Joseph. Session four, journeying through the wall, looking at Abraham. Session five, enlarging your soul through grief and loss, looking at Jesus. Session six, discovering the rhythms of the daily office and Sabbath, looking at Daniel. Session seven, growing into an emotionally mature adult, looking at the parable of the Good Samaritan. Then, session eight, going the next step to develop a rule of life, looking at Acts II and the early church.

You will be invited to look inside yourself in ways you never dreamed. You'll be invited to grow in your relationship of communion with Jesus, as well as take a few practical steps that will help you follow him. The main idea that we will be unpacking, here, is simple, yet far reaching. Emotional health, defined as our ability to be self-aware and love well, and a slowed down spirituality, in order to cultivate our relationship with Jesus, when brought together, offer nothing short of a spiritual revolution in our lives.
A person can grow emotionally healthy without Christ. I can think of a number of non-Christian people who are more loving, balanced, and civil than many church members I know. They go to 12-step groups, they do counseling, they're relatively self aware, but they don't have a deep walk with Christ. At the same time, a person can be really into prayer, silence, scripture and other Christian disciplines, and yet be emotionally immature and socially maladjusted. They're unaware, defensive, judgmental, and touchy. But it is the two together, emotional health and contemplative, or slowed down spirituality, that release great power to transform our spiritual lives, our families, our workplaces, our churches, and ultimately, the world around us.

We see this modeled in David. Described as a man after God's own heart, he's very emotionally aware of what's going on inside him. We see him in the Psalms, outraged, depressed, overjoyed, shouting, engaging in a wide range of emotions. He is raw and vulnerable. Who else would commit adultery and murder and put it in a song to be sung in church? Psalm 51. At the same time, David has a deep passion for God. He pants for God like a deer pants for water. He writes songs and worships and seeks God's face. He loves scripture.

In the same way, we are inviting you to be real. We want you to take off all masks of pretending and let Jesus lovingly strip you of all the false layers that don't belong in our following of him. For this reason, at times, this material may be difficult for you. So, remember, once we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, our standing before God is based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, alone, not our own. It's based on his perfect record, not our imperfect one. It's based on his performance, not ours. We live and move in his love and grace, alone.

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: To get truly emotionally and mentally healthy, we’ve got to take off all the masks of pretending. Emotionally Healthy Spiritualty is published by HarperChristian Resources and it streams on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we are offering an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get a small group plan for up to 20 people for only $15.99/month, a 20% savings. And, for a complete experience with Emotionally Healthy Spiritualty, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential workbook designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the guidelines for the best way to experience this study, checklists, self-assessments, discussion guides, questions to consider between sessions to enhance your own personal study. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.

And now, let’s return to Pete Scazzero.

[MUSIC PLAYING] PETE SCAZZERO: In this first study, we will be looking at the problem of emotionally unhealthy spirituality, and the life of Saul in 1 Samuel 15. He's probably one of the greatest examples in scripture of someone suffering from a bad case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. Saul, as you will see, is not emotionally aware. He is not in touch with his fears or need for approval, or his tendency towards self-deception. Unlike David and the Psalms, he makes little connection between his emotional world and his spirituality. And also, unlike David, we never see him passionately developing his personal relationship with God. He skims on that, and over time, it slowly destroys both his relationship with God and others.

There will be two main themes in this first session. The first revolves around what is often called The False Self. This is when we allow external appearances or our talents or accomplishments to give us a sense of self-worth. We use them as a way to protect ourselves from others. We'll observe this in Saul. You'll see him pretending to be something on the outside that does not line up with who he really is on the inside. We, sometimes, do the same thing.

The second theme revolves around slowing down to be with God. That is the way we balance our being with our doing. Saul, like many of us, is doing way more activity for God than his inner life can sustain. He is not prayerful or reflective with himself or before God, and this causes him to make a number of bad decisions.

I've lived the destructive effects of emotionally unhealthy spirituality, but there is another way. My prayer for you is that this course will guide you to go beyond a surface spirituality, to one that is deeply transformative. We can't change or fix ourselves, that's God's work, but we can position ourselves before him, as I trust you will do, as we wrestle with scripture, together, so that he can do that work in us.

Let me invite you, now, to open your workbook, and let's go to the Starter Question and take a look at the 10 Top Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality.

As we close this session, let's summarize the two invitations from God in this study. The first has to do with allowing God to expose and dismantle our false self. Saul resisted this at every turn. We observe him, for example, desperately seeking validation and approval from other people. On the surface, Saul looks like he's serving God and listening to God's word, at least partially. But the reality is he's self-promoting. He's filled with fear. He's defensive. And he's self-protective. We see him, for example, building a monument to himself and thinking nothing of it. He's concerned to be honored by others even when he is supposedly repenting.

His false self is so much a part of him he has a hard time seeing it. Later in the Book of 1 Samuel, we'll see him fill with jealousy as David becomes more popular than him. He even attempts to murder David multiple times. Saul lacks integrity. That is, he pretends to be something on the outside that he is not on the inside. Pretending to be someone we are not is so big in our culture that we rarely think twice about it. Politicians do it to get our votes. Business leaders do it to generate profits and attract investors. Magazine editors airbrush photos to make models look more perfect than beautiful than they actually are. Workers wear masks to get promotions. Young adults and students do it to impress their friends. Sadly, even in church, we sometimes put on a mask so that certain people will like us or think of us in a certain way. It is so easy to pretend to be something on the outside that we are not on the inside.

Now, all cultures pretend to a greater or lesser extent. But in the Church of Jesus Christ, God invites us to be our unique selves before him, not pretending to be someone on the outside that we are not on the inside. We're called to be a countercultural community, to be assigned to the world that Jesus has made possible, a way of life unlike anything the world has ever seen. We bear witness to the power of God by the way we live authentically and with integrity out of our true selves in Christ. For this to happen, we must, as Paul wrote in 4 Ephesians, die to our old false self in order to live authentically in our new true self in Christ.

This strikes at the very core of true spirituality. We will be coming at this in different ways throughout this course. Next week, for example, we'll be looking at David and his true self. We'll look at the impact of our family of origin as well as the place of walls and dark nights to strip us of all that doesn't belong to God. We'll study the place of grieving our losses God's way and how that frees us from unhealthy attachments and illusions and more. The second invitation from this study relates to slowing down for God. In the application section, you were asked to draw two circles to illustrate how your activities, or you're doing, balances with your contemplative life, or your being with God.

The large majority of us have way more activity going on in our lives than our inner life can sustain. We saw this in Saul. He was busy doing a lot of things. We might say he was a faithful Church attender and worker for God. But he did not cultivate his personal relationship with God. We never see him, for example, writing songs and seeking after God like David. Saul lacked, as we saw in this powerful story, this. "Does the LORD delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams."

Most important is the phrase "to heed," which means to listen. Now, pull out your Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day devotional. This coming week, we want to invite you to begin to meet with Jesus twice a day. We want to ask that you start developing a rhythm of being with Jesus through these devotionals in the day by day book. Now, you look at the table of contents, you'll notice each chapter corresponds with each of our eight sessions in the course. The core of the course is helping people learn to cultivate their own deep relationship with Jesus. This learning to be with Jesus in silence, stillness, and scripture is the most important and yet difficult part of the course.

One of the greatest scandals in the church today is that so many people live vicariously off the spirituality of others. Yet without us abiding in Jesus, very little will change in our lives or in our churches. Our prayer is that you will slow down these next eight weeks to deepen your first-hand relationship with Jesus. God wants to take the Saul out of us. By that I'm referring to our tendency to pretend or leave shallow lives, skim on our relationship with Jesus, go through religious motions, follow God on our own terms. God wants to make you a David. That is, a man, a woman after his own heart. That's next week's theme.

David knows himself and is comfortable in his own skin. David was emotionally very self-aware and very much alive emotionally. At the same time, David's also passionate for God. He hungers and thirst for him. He spends time in silence and solitude before him. And he seeks God with all his heart. Our goal here is that you would be emotionally alive before God and passionate for him like David. God had a destiny, a plan for David's life. He has a plan for yours as well. So my prayer for you is that you will surrender your will to God's will and that, during this course, you will open yourself up to the Holy Spirit to empower you to become the person God wants you to become so that you can do what God is asking you to do.

So this coming week, you'll want to read chapter 2 of the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality book, Know Yourself That You May Know God. We're used to reading books quickly, gathering information, reading with our minds only. But let me invite you to read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality differently. Let the book read you, reading from the heart, open, prayerfully God will have certain sections, or sentences, or even concepts that will speak specifically to you each week. Stop, pray, listen to God. Write notes in the margins or the back of the book to yourself.

And you'll also want to dig this first week into the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day daily office devotional. You'll be doing week one of thEat book where the devotions will reinforce and expand on what we learned here in this session. So may the Lord bless you, and keep you, and make his face shine upon you. And may you be given the grace to be still before him, to release your anxieties and worries to him so you can rest in his loving arms. Amen.

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: So, Pete talks about the importance of the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality book, and the Day by Day daily office devotional. Those are available at direct from publisher pricing by finding the study on Study Gateway, and clicking on the BUY buttons at the top of the page. Something else you’ll find at the top of the page is a link to the free Leader’s Training Vault over on Pete’s website. He offers a series of training courses and materials for leaders of this course, and it’s very important to be properly prepared to lead this course because it goes deep into a person’s past, and generational patterns, and the destructive effects of life-long emotional un-healthiness. The training program is free, and you can find information about it on the Emotionally Healthy page on Study Gateway.

And here at Study Gateway, it’s important that you know we’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month! So, is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.

Come back next week for Episode 4 in the Mental Health season, where we’re going to hear about anxiety from Rebekah Lyons in Rhythms of Renewal. Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. See you next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
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