Principle #1 for an Emotionally Healthy Church

Principle #1 for an Emotionally Healthy Church

There is hardly anything more destructive of the Christian faith than an emotionally unhealthy church! Through the years I have experienced the toxic symptoms of churches that were unhealthy, and they did not either know it, or know what to do about it. Peter Scazzero has written a book on this very topic. In the next few weeks, I want to blog on each of the 7 principles he highlights that make up an emotionally healthy church.

        Principle #1 is “Look beneath the surface.”

In this chapter, Scazzero builds off the famous quote by Dag Hammarskjold: “The longest journey of any person is the journey inward.” This means being honest and looking at our own hearts, motives, and intent as it relates to my being a part of the body of Christ.

As I read his chapter on this first principle, here are some of the major ideas I came away with:

• We have to guard our heart

The wise man, Solomon, offers this sage advice: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).  This all-encompassing statement (about how important the heart is) provides a good foundation for our thinking. We guard our heart because the “un-guarded” heart can become Satan’s dwelling place.

I want to guard my heart by asking for God’s Spirit for protection and a shield against any kind of thinking that becomes self-centered. My heart can become blinded to others and what they need. I have to guard my heart because it can become so toxic and unhealthy to my own self that I become my own worst enemy.

Solomon describes it as being like a fountain from which water flows. Every good and life-giving thing can flow from it. Everything we do, what we think, how we think of others, how we treat others, how we act and behave toward others, our intent and motives–everything flows from the heart!

• Pain can help us grow

Scazzero is not just talking about physical pain here. He is talking about an inner, emotional pain that is hurt by others, and hurts others. Inner, emotional pain hurts more than any physical pain.

A number of years ago I visited a grandfather in the hospital. I sat on the side of his bed, and he shared some of his life’s story with me. At that time, his grandchildren were living with him. They were involved in activities that he disapproved of, and he let them know. Instead of respecting his guidance, the grandchildren were disrespectful and dismissive of his loving discipline. He then made this remark, “When your grandchildren are small and step on your toes, that does not really hurt. It is only when they grow up and step on your heart that you really feel pain.” I have never forgotten that!

Anytime another person hurts me deeply, I have to be mature enough and stop and ask why. Why did that word or act hurt me so deeply? What is going on inside of me that needs attention? These are the hard questions of looking beneath the surface.

• Self-awareness

Who am I? It is really hard to see ourselves as others see us. Case in point—remember seeing yourself lately on a video clip that someone took on their phone and then showed it to you? You were shocked at how you looked! Either you did not know how bad your clothes looked, or you did not like your hair, etc.

Know thyself. It is hard to know ourselves, or at least it is challenging to take the time necessary for a good, hard look. Intuitively, we think we are not going to like what we see, so we would rather not look!

Self-awareness is not the same as self-centeredness. In fact, I would say the less self-aware we are the more self-centered we become!

• God’s grace and emotional health

Spiritual health and emotional health go hand in hand. If I am ignoring an emotional issue in my life, it will have devastating effects on my spiritual life. I have seen over the years too many people “spiritualize” their life, ignoring the emotional upheaval in their own hearts just beneath the surface.

I think a lot of us were brought up being taught that emotions were bad, and that is why we tried to hide them. Emotions are part of God’s creative genius in fashioning human beings.

Emotions are not bad. Emotions communicate. It is what we do with those emotions that can become bad. If we process a negative emotion in an unhealthy way and dump on people, that is not helpful to anyone. However, if we listen carefully to our emotions and the emotions of others, we learn that it is through emotions that our hearts communicate what the mind alone cannot know.

Scazzero points this out about Jesus: “Scripture portrays Jesus as one who had intense, raw, emotional experiences and was able to express him emotions in unashamed, unembarrassed freedom to others. He did not repress or project his feelings onto others. Instead, we read of Jesus responsibly experiencing the full range of human emotion throughout his earthly ministry” (page 78). 

A great personal Bible study theme is to go through the gospels and list all of Jesus’ emotions. There is an astounding array of emotional settings in which Jesus portrays at the fullest depth of what it means to be truly human.

• The “glittering image” must be replaced

The church, its members, and its leaders are all human. Scazzero suggests that we need to get rid of the “glittering image” that tries to portray that only the “perfect need apply here to be a member of this congregation.”

Too often, we ministers encourage and operate with the halo of a “glittering image,” and we love to have it so! But we must look beneath the glitter and realize that focusing only on how things look on the outside is a perspective that received some of Jesus’ strongest words of condemnation!

For instance, In Matthew 23:27 Jesus says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

The “glittering image” must be replaced with the unglamorous honesty of how things really are. For it is only in this perspective of real honesty, that we can best be a “one another” fellowship!

An emotionally healthy church. We all want to be a part of that kind of spiritual family. According to Scazzero, five things then make up the emotionally healthy church:

• We have to guard our heart
• We have to allow emotional pain to help us grow
• We have to know ourselves and become more self-aware
• We have to express our emotions in a healthy way
• We have to replace the “glittering image” with a healthy honesty.

Ministers, church leaders, elders and deacons need to all be on this journey together. We have to look beneath the surface, starting with our own hearts, our own motives, and become more self-aware.

As I get older, the interior life with Jesus becomes more precious than the exterior life of trying to impress others. An emotionally healthy church gives up the idol of trying to impress others. It is not about how we look. It is about who we are in Jesus by the grace of God. We are all in this journey together. We need to strive through prayer, surrender, self-awareness, forgiveness and reconciliation to go in the intentional direction of an emotionally healthy church. May we go beneath the surface to do so!

In Christian love, Curtis

Resource:

Scazzero, Peter. (2010). The emotionally healthy church: A strategy for discipleship that actually changes lives.        Zondervan Publishers.