Abstract
Tired, worn-out, overloaded, and drained emotionally with nothing more to give is an emotional and physical state in which many people find themselves in the church and spiritual organizations where the drive to serve God through the task of doing comes out of guilt rather than the heart. The discipline of serving God through works is an ingrained Christian task but why is the task of serving so emotionally draining? How can one move from feeling like an exhausted servant of God to a son or daughter of God serving with overflowing love and stamina?
Emotionally Healthy Discipleship claims to move an individual beyond a shallow relationship with God to an authentic deeper relationship where serving God comes from a place of maturity and emotional transformation rather than just a chore on a to-do list. The idea of being with God through an intimate relationship sustains one's work done for God, confirming that emotional health and spiritual maturity go hand in hand in pursuing God's work.
This book was written as a framework for churches, church leaders, and Christian organizations to move their people from immature shallow spirituality, serving God and the church out of exhaustion, to a deep transformation healthy state of discipleship that is balanced with spending time with God before doing for God.
Author, Peter Scazzero, connects Emotionally Healthy Discipleship to his own personal struggles. This book was founded during his own personal place of spiritual exhaustion. He gives his readers a detailed story of how in the depths of his spiritual exhaustion he discovers a framework for a deep transformation for spiritual and emotional discipline. Emotionally Healthy Discipleship should be read by church leaders, Christian organizations, and anyone longing for a sustainable state of discipleship that will last without encountering emotional exhaustion.
Scazzero sets up his book by identifying and defining four failures that undermine deep discipleship. This section is supported with valid reasons, examples, and truths. He then addresses the fact that individuals must address these failures before one can equip others in creating a healthy church culture or truly serving God in a way that deeply changes lives through the transformative discipleship pathways. He defines Emotionally Healthy Discipleship (EHD) as “slowing down to be with Jesus, going beneath the surface of your life to be deeply transformed by Jesus, and offering your life as a gift to the world for Jesus” (p. 26) based on the seven marks of biblical discipleship.
He further encourages his readers to self-reflect by taking a self-assessment on emotional healthy discipline, which places everyone into an emotional category: infant, child, adolescent, and adult. From the defined self-assessment category, the author guides his readers through the Seven Marks of Healthy Discipleship, while encouraging his reader to take responsibility for one's growth and be vulnerable enough to make a change.
The Seven Marks of Healthy Discipleship include:
Be Before You Do by “making a radical decision, feel your feelings, integrate silence, and commune with Jesus throughout the day” (p. 49). Follow the Crucified, Not the Americanized, Jesus through embracing the cross and crucifixion, defining worldly discipleship vs. Jesus's Discipleship and success. To follow the crucified Jesus, we must relax in Jesus, detach for Jesus, and listen with discernment (p. 86). Embrace God's Gift of Limits “by knowing your limits and boundaries and implement healthy limits in your personal life, church, and organization” (p. 90). Discover the Treasures Buried in Grief and Loss by following God's three phrases for processing grief and loss by paying attention to pain, waiting in the confusing in-between, and allowing the old to birth to the new (pg. 117). Make Love the Measure of Maturity by using “Jesus, the incarnation as our model for loving others well through entering another's world, holding on to self, and living in the tension between two worlds (p. 148–149). Break the Power of the Past. “Jesus calls us to break the power of the past…by putting off the sinful patterns of our family of origin and culture and relearning how to do life God's way in the new family of Jesus” (p. 169). Lead Out of Weakness and Vulnerability so that “people enjoy a taste of God's beauty and presence in Christ…a glimpse of the truth and goodness of heaven shines, God's gentle power flows, and people soften” (p. 189).
As a first-time reader of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, I was impressed by the accessible, narrative, and practical-diagnostic nature of the book. The book walked me through identifying and assessing the faulty lack of emotional discipline in my life. A step-by-step framework provided the process by which to obtain the emotional healthy state of discipline whereby sustaining my service to God and others.
The weakness of this book is that it was written for the church and Christian organizations in mind but truly could expand its audience to include the general Christian audience wanting a self-help book about how to create an emotionally healthy discipline in their lives with sustainability. This book would be a good read for anyone wanting a framework on how to implement a true sustainable spiritual and emotional discipleship that creates a life of service with stamina and deep-felt life fulfillment. Our churches, Christian organizations, and people in general are tired and worn-out yet still serve the church out of guilt and duty, while lacking deep spirituality and emotional connection that creates sustainable discipleship. Emotionally Healthy Discipleship claims that it will move its readers from a shallow Christianity to a deep transformation, which it fulfills as the reader processes through the chapters of the book while self-reflecting and implementing each concept in the book.