One of the really formative books in my spiritual journey on staff has been Peter Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan, 2003).
As Pete famously says, “Emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable. It is not possible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature.”
Pete addresses our tendency as the American church to engage in superficial discipleship. We are good at increasing in head knowledge, strategies and rule-following, but we often fail to recognize troubling areas in our lives for what they are: tips of the iceberg, signposts God is using to direct us to where deep transformation is needed.
The practical nature of this book is illustrated by a few chapter titles: – Look beneath the Surface; – Live in Brokenness and Vulnerability; – Receive the Gift of Limits; – Embrace Grieving and Loss. Each of these have had important impact for me. I read it so long ago that I’ve started to forget where I originally encountered them as central aspects of following Jesus. Time for a needed re-read!
by Trever Risinger
