Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation

by Peter Scazzero

Overview

The global church is facing a discipleship crisis. Here's how we move forward into transformative discipleship...

Pastors and church leaders want to see lives changed by the gospel. They work tirelessly to care for people, initiate new ministries, preach creatively, and keep up with trends. Sadly, much of this effort does not result in deeply changed disciples.

Traditional discipleship strategies fail because they only address surface issues and do not go deep enough into the emotional health of individuals.

But transformative, emotionally healthy discipleship is a methods-based biblical theology that, when fully implemented, informs every area of a church, ministry, or organization. It is a discipleship structure built from the center that:

• Slows down our lives so we can cultivate a deep, personal relationship with Jesus.
• Challenges the values of Western culture that have compromised the radical call to follow the crucified Jesus.
• Integrates sadness, loss, and vulnerability, that, when left out, leave people defensive and easily triggered.
• Acknowledges God's gift of limits in our lives.
• Connects how our family and personal history influence our discipleship in the present.
• Measures our spiritual maturity by how we are growing in our ability to love others.

In Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, bestselling author Pete Scazzero takes leaders step-by-step through how to create an emotionally healthy culture and multiply deeply-changed people in every aspect of church life, including:

• Leadership and team development
• Marriage and single ministry
• Small groups and youth and children's ministry
• Preaching, worship, and administration
• Outreach

Complete with assessments and practical strategies, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship will help you move people to the beneath-the-surface discipleship that actually has the power to change the world.

**Winner of the 2022 ECPA Christian Book Award for Ministry Resources**

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780310109488
Publisher:	Zondervan
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	169,354
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Peter Scazzero, along with his wife, Geri, founded Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, a groundbreaking ministry that moves the church forward by slowing the church down, in order to multiply deeply changed leaders and disciples. This journey began when Pete founded New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York, a large, multiracial church with more than seventy-three countries represented—where he served as senior pastor for twenty-six years.

Pete hosts the top ranked Emotionally Healthy Leader podcast and is the author of a number of bestselling books, including Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. He is also the author of The Emotionally Healthy Discipleship Course (Parts 1 and 2), which has transformed tens of thousands of lives around the world.

For more information, visit emotionallyhealthy.org or connect with Pete on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at @petescazzero.

Table of Contents

The Difficult Journey to Move beyond Shallow Discipleship ix

Part 1 The Current State of Discipleship

Chapter 1 The Four Failures that Undermine Deep Discipleship 3

Chapter 2 The Emotionally Healthy Discipleship Personal Assessment 26

Part 2 The Seven Marks of Healthy Discipleship

Chapter 3 Be Before You Do 37

Chapter 4 Follow the Crucified, Not the Americanized, Jesus 61

Chapter 5 Embrace God's Gift of Limits 87

Chapter 6 Discover the Treasures Buried in Grief and Loss 110

Chapter 7 Make Love the Measure of Maturity 134

Chapter 8 Break the Power of the Past 160

Chapter 9 Lead Out of Weakness and Vulnerability 187

Implementing Emotionally Healthy Discipleship 211

Appendix A Church Culture Revolution: A Six-Part Vision 225

Appendix B Nicene Creed (with Notations) 235

Acknowledgments 239

Notes 241

Editorial Reviews

'This is a book that must be read by the church, a word that has to get out. The world is becoming urban and multi-ethnic, and this book shows us the way to build healthy and effective churches in those communities.'

author of One Blood: Parting Words to the Chur John M. Perkins

'There may be no more important pastoral and prophetic voice for church leaders in this cultural moment than Pete and Geri Scazzero and the work of emotionally healthy discipleship.'

Todd Wilson

'There is so much to like in Peter Scazzero's Emotionally Healthy Discipleship—he pushes against the 'let's get 'er done' approach to measuring discipleship and advocates instead a slowed-down be-with-God measure to following Jesus. What I like most is his emphasis on getting to know the crucified Jesus and ridding ourselves of the Americanized Jesus.'

Northern Seminary; author of Jesus Creed Scot Mc Knight

The world is becoming urban and multiethnic, and this book shows us the way to build healthy and effective churches in those communities.”

author of One Blood John M. Perkins