Some thoughts after reading Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero

Peter Scazzero founded New Life Fellowship Church 29 years ago in New York and is still a pastor there. As a seasoned church pastor, he knows the terrain of pastoral ministry. His church is a very multi-racial church with members coming from almost 70 countries. The premise of his book is that without emotional health, there can be no spiritual health either. The two are inseparably woven.

The first part of the book looks at the symptoms and causes to the emotionally unhealthy spirituality. Scazzero argues that a biased philosophy of ministry, ie. “doing” mentality, has worn out many devoted Christians. Then we have got lots of Christians living a compartmentalized life – this bit is church, that part is my life or my work or my entertainment etc. He also asks questions about the effectiveness of "more" church-related activities/programs as means of discipleship and nurturing.

The second part outlines pathways towards a spirituality that is emotionally healthy. The paths include awareness of oneself as a key to one’s relationship with God, recognition of the sinful and destructive patterns of the past, embracing life’s unavoidable grief and loss, development of a rhythm of rest and silence to move into God’s presence for holistic growth.

I think this book has offered some good integration of emotional health and spiritual formation. We might all have come across Christians who have a passion for God, commit to the church, participate / serve in ministries wholeheartedly, and these people by all means are usually considered spiritually mature. Nevertheless, when faced with interpersonal conflicts, they, more often than not, are shown to remain trapped at a level of spiritual immaturity. According to Scazzero, “the work for God that is not nourished by a deep interior life with God will eventually be contaminated by other things such as ego, power, needing approval of others, and buying into the wrong ideas of success and the mistaken belief that we cannot fail.”[1] When it comes to making of disciples for Christ, we as pastoral leaders cannot neglect the fact that we are handling the whole life formation for God’s people.

There’s another insight on how we remain in Christ throughout the day. We all know the importance of having a quiet time or devotions daily to be drawn to God’s love and word.  But the fact is we become distracted and forget that God is active in the rest of the day. What are the ways that keep us grounded in God’s love and the fact that He is in control? We can (and teach our people) set apart small units of time during a day for prayer, Scripture reading / meditation, worship and prayer walk. Those times are anchors for living a Christian life in the frantic world.[2] This is particularly relevant and helpful. So this is a book highly recommended to all who want to follow Christ more faithfully.

[1] Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, 32.

[2] Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, 155.