LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
READING REFLECTION OF
PETER SCAZZERO’S THE EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY CHURCH
Submitted to Dr. Gregory Faulls, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the completion of the course,
EVAN 500
Spiritual Factors of Growing Churches
by
Kristopher Williams
(SCORE: 49/50)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES…………………………………………………………….…...1
Spiritual and Emotional Immaturity in Church Leadership….….……….….…………….1
Creeping Gnosticism in the Church….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….1
God Uses Pain to Make Us Grow….….….….……………………………………………2
In the World or of the World? ............................................................................................2
APPLICATIONS………………………………………………………………………………….3
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………….….….………………………………………………4
ii
Scazzero, Peter L. The Emotionally Healthy Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015.
CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES
Spiritual and Emotional Immaturity in Church Leadership
In his The Emotionally Healthy Church, Peter Scazzero recognizes that the “link between
emotional health and spiritual maturity is a large, unexplored area of discipleship,” with the
consequence being that “unless we integrate emotional maturity as a focus in our discipleship,
we are in danger of missing God’s point completely — love.”1 The main conduit for emotional
and spiritual maturity is the pastoral leadership of the church itself.2
Creeping Gnosticism in the Church
According to Scazzero, “A subtle message has filtered into our churches that to be
human, to be emotional, is somehow sinful — or at least less than spiritual.”3 Scazzero sees this
tendency to focus on the spiritual aspects of humanity to the detriment of human physical
emotion as a consequence of neo-Platonic influence on early Christianity. Contrary to Gnostic
belief systems that rejected matter as inherently evil, and Platonism that promoted the superiority
of the spirit over the body, Scazzero recognizes that humans “are more than spiritual beings. God
made us whole people, in his image (see Gen. 1:27). That includes physical, spiritual, emotional,
intellectual, and social dimensions.”4 Humans are uniquely matter and spirit and must deal with
both in order to be completely human.
God Uses Pain to Make Us Grow
1 Peter L. Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 18.
2 Ibid., 20.
3 Ibid., 53.
4 Ibid., 53.
1
While promoting the idea that “God often uses pain to get us to change,” Scazzero notes
that humans, while hedonistic at heart, are typically unwilling to self-assess even in times of
crisis, meaning that “unless there is sufficient discomfort and anguish, most will not do the hard
work to take a deep, honest look inside.”5 Physical, emotional, and spiritual pain may be
catalysts permitted by God that are meant to reorient the believer. This requires going beneath
the surface through: (1) Being aware of feelings and actions; (2) Assessing one’s motivation; (3)
Seeing the gospel as linked with emotional health; and, (4) Eliminating one’s “glittering image”
and exposing the true self for public examination.6
In the World or of the World?
Scazzero rightly points out that “Contemporary church culture has largely bought into the
world’s definition of power and strength. We look for building, finances, numbers of people, and
large budgets to demonstrate the strength and success of our churches and ministries.”7 The
measures of success demonstrated by the biblical texts explicitly reject the standards of the
world. St. Paul argues to use compassion and “for the authenticity of his leadership by appealing,
not to his visions and revelations from God, not to his successes and gifts, but instead to his
weakness.”8 Rather than force, St. Paul used personal weakness and persuasion in order to draw
converts and promote salvation. More amazingly, Jesus himself thwarted worldly expectations
of a warrior messiah and conquered by dying. Moreover, being a Christian minister is a position
of service to others rather than one of power over others; one serves in order to lead.
APPLICATIONS
5 Ibid., 76.
6 Ibid., 77.
7 Ibid., 120.
8 Ibid., 120.
2
In arguing that “We cannot grow an emotionally healthy church if we ourselves are not
addressing issues deep beneath the surface of our lives,”9 Scazzero presses the idea that
parishioners cannot receive what the church leadership itself does not possess itself. Church
leaders must first address their underlying, and many times unknown, emotional issues in order
to grow spiritually. The spiritual growth of church leaders, while not necessarily a guarantee of
congregational spiritual growth, removes a profound stumbling block for parishioners.
Scazzero’s worry of the subtle message that “to be human, to be emotional, is somehow
sinful — or at least less than spiritual” actually conceals what I view as a powerful heresy that a
pastor would do well to combat actively in its own right. Having heard evangelicals say, with
fervor, “Absent from the body is present with the Lord,” the belief that humans “become angels”
or that their simply goes to heaven at death subtly masks ignorance of bodily resurrection, a
thoroughly biblical doctrine that even the Pharisees accepted. Thoroughly teaching and
reteaching the doctrine of the resurrection in total would demonstrate the unity of soul and body
and demonstrate how emotional health is linked with biblical spirituality.
Scazzero is not wrong to note that pain can help a person grow spiritually. Personal
physical pain, or the emotional pain from the death of a loved one, can make one more acutely
aware of his or her own mortality, thereby causing greater reflection on eternity, what lies past
death, and an associated reliance on God. A series of “unlucky events” that cause pain in the
secular world can lead to reflection and a μετάνοια, or spiritually transformative change of heart,
in line with God’s precepts. Examples from the pastor’s life my help demonstrate this.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
9 Ibid., 47.
3
