Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity

Pastors and church leaders want to see lives changed by the gospel. They work tirelessly to care for people, initiate new programs and ministries, preach new sermon series, and keep up with the latest trends. Sadly, it would seem that much of this effort is not resulting in deeply changed disciples.

Why? Because many churches are unknowingly operating from a shallow discipleship that allows people to recycle the same problems year after year. Church goers are increasingly passive with lives not distinct from the culture. People are not able to integrate anger and sadness. Many are defensive and incapable of revealing their own weaknesses. Church leaders desperately need a better way of teaching people what it means to follow Jesus in a transformative way.

In Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, bestselling author Pete Scazzero combines three decades of wisdom with hard lessons from his own ministry journey. He lays out what is required for church leaders to multiply deeply-changed people who are growing in relationship with God, themselves and others.

Scazzero begins with four beneath-the-surface, systemic gaps that undermine serious discipleship. He provides a clear vision for a church culture that deeply changes lives and then practically unpacks the seven biblical marks of emotionally healthy discipleship:

Learn to Be Before You Do
Follow the Crucified, Not the Americanized, Jesus
Receive the Gift of Limits
Befriend Suffering and Loss
Break the Power of the Past
Practice the Presence of People
Lead Out of Brokenness and Vulnerability
Finally, he lays out practical steps for you to create an emotionally healthy discipleship culture that actually has the power to change the world.