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The 10 Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

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Linda and I would like to start a time-defined group in Santa Barbara to develop some relationships and consider the topic of emotionally healthy spirituality.  We anticipate using Peter Scazzero‘s book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.  The following is a quick overview of an article he wrote…

A person can grow emotionally healthy without Christ. I can think of a number of non-Christian people who are more loving, balanced and civil than many church members I know. At the same time a person can be really into prayer, silence, Scripture, and other Xian disciplines and be emotionally immature and socially maladjusted.  It is the 2 together – emotional health and contemplative spirituality – that release great power to transform our spiritual lives, our small groups and our churches.

The pathway out of this disconnect is radical. That is, it very likely cuts to the root of your entire approach to following Jesus. Trimming a few branches by, for example, attending a prayer retreat or adding a couple of new spiritual disciplines to an already crowded life will not be enough. The enormity of the problem is such that only a revolution in our following of Jesus will bring about the lasting, profound change we long for in our lives.

Before I prescribe this pathway, it is essential for us to clearly identify the primary symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality that continue to wreck havoc in our personal lives and our churches. The following are the top ten symptoms indicating if I am suffering from a bad case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality.

  1. Using God to run from God (e.g. applying Scripture selectively to suit my own purposes, not me doing God’s will.
  2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear (e.g. not being honest with myself and/or others about the feelings, hurts and pains beneath the surface of my life).
  3. Dying to the wrong things (e.g. denying healthy, God-given desires and pleasures of life (friendships, joy, music, beauty, laughter, nature) while finding it difficult to die to my self-protectiveness, defensiveness, a lack of vulnerability and judgmentalism).
  4. Denying the past’s impact on the present (e.g. not considering how my family of origin and significant  people/events from my past have shaped my present).
  5. Dividing life into “secular” and “sacred” compartments (e.g.  compartmentalizing God to “Christian activities” while usually forgetting about him when I am working, shopping, studying or recreating).
  6. Doing for God instead of being with God (e.g. evaluating my spirituality based on how much I am doing for God).
  7. Spiritualizing away conflict (e.g. Missing out on true peace by smoothing over disagreements, burying tensions and avoiding conflict – rather than disrupting the false peace like Jesus).
  8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure (e.g. not speaking freely about my weaknesses, failures and mistakes).
  9. Living without limits (e.g. “trying to do it all” or “bite off more than I can chew”).
  10. Judging the spiritual journeys of others (e.g. finding myself occupied and bothered by the faults of others).

What God did in our lives spilled out into the church immediately, beginning with our staff team, then our elder board and eventually the rest of our leadership.

The result has been a rippling effect, very slowly, through the entire church.

Beginning with the staff and elders, interns, ministry and small group leaders– directly and indirectly–we have intentionally integrated the principles that are explained more fully in The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan 2003) and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Nelson, 2006).

Once you go through the door and leave what I am calling “emotionally unhealthy spirituality,” there is no turning back. It is the beginning of a journey that will change your life, your marriage, your church and, ultimately, your ministry!

To see the full article click here.

Making Room for Postmoderns

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Over the last fourteen years, having worked in Europe and in many churches around the US, I have noticed an interesting, and rather sad, phenomena – babyboomers seem to be pushing postmoderns out of existing churches. There is an upside and a downside to this… The upside is that new churches are being started; with new opportunities for leadership development and new kinds of churches that will reach diverse cultures and subcultures. The downside is that postmoderns would, I think, rather be mentored and discipled.  Having interacted over the last several years with churches, postmoderns, and my own four children (ages 25-30), I have developed a list of perspectives that will help in a dialogue that, I hope, may bridge the gap.  Many existing churches are distinctly missing the 18-35 age groups.  It is a pity because they have a lot to offer.  Here’s my list…

  1. Modern and postmodern[1] worldviews are ebbing and flowing within our culture – and churches.[2] This will be true of the next several years, if not decades. Church leaders will need to be informed and be able to serve as interpreters among the generations.[3] Leadership teams will need to obtain a growing understanding of postmodern thinking.[4] The following is an excellent launch point for dialogue: a core postmodern mindset embraces the absolute willingness to discuss the absolute knowledge of the absolute truth.
  2. In consideration of the above – we (boomers) need to learn how to listen better.  We gain the respect and attention of Gen-Xers/postmoderns when we ask them about their story/journey and truly listen.
  3. Don’t make Gen-Xers/postmoderns earn your respect; give it to them (until or unless you see otherwise).
  4. Boomers tend to get infuriated with postmoderns because they ask a lot of questions.
  5. Authenticity – any hint of inauthenticity, religious, or “happy-clappy” Christianity will run them off – especially the seekers.
  6. When speaking to Gen-Xers/postmoderns about sin define it as building their identity – their self-worth and happiness – on anything other than God.[5]
  7. Social networking and technology.  It’s very much a part of their world.
  8. Celebrate art. Art is often a backdoor to truth. C. S. Lewis said that his imagination was baptized when he was still an atheist because of excellent Christian art.[6] Additionally, the artists tend to be the first to see and feel a truth. They bring it out of their subconscious and into their art. But most of the time they have no idea what they are really doing and cannot fathom the truth their art is expressing.
  9. Proactively connect the local church to the significant glocal issues of our day (i.e., poverty, genocide, AIDS, human trafficking, multiculturalism, creation care, globalization, immigration, etc.).  Encourage dialogical learning communities and activate the church into glocal service.
[1] While postmodern thought is not limited to age, the general age range of postmoderns is mid-to-late thirties and below.

[2] The current cultural milieu includes a growing contingent of postmodern, post-Christian, post-seeker-sensitive (Kimball: 26), post-literate (Gibbs: 124) and post-Constantinian (Webber: 117) followers (and seekers) of Jesus. Webber referred to them as “younger evangelicals,” Gibbs identifies them as “Gen Xers,” and Kimball utilizes the term “emerging generations.”

[3] Eddie Gibbs, Leadership Next p. 53.

[4] Postmoderns view the nature of knowledge as a perception that is relative. Additionally, the postmodern view of knowledge (and reality) is pluralistic and fragmented wherein knowledge is derived through a combination of intuition, feelings, and/or experience.

[5] Tim Keller speaking to postmoderns about sin – it isn’t only doing bad things, sin is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. http://www.monergism.com/postmodernidols.html. See also his new book – Counterfeit Gods.

[6] Surprised by Joy pgs.180-81.

Haunted by Rumors of Glory

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A few days ago I reread C. S. Lewis’ Weight of Glory. I have often heard that people find it to be his greatest essay (or sermon).  This essay invites me deeper into the legitimate longing of every human on the planet – intimacy with God. Here are some of my highlights for this most recent read…

“Glory [means a] good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” (p. 7)

It it not that we should know God, but that we are known by God (1 Cor 8:3)

“Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of the same door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honor beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache (pgs. 7-8)

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it to ourselves, to bathe in it to become part of it.” (p. 8 )

“We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so.” (p. 8 )

“There are no ordinary people.You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind(and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love sinner – no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment…Your neighbor is the holist object presented to your senses. (p. 9)

(To read WOG yourself click here.)