Pete Scazzero is the founder of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York City, a large, multiracial church with more than seventy-three countries represented. After serving as senior pastor for twenty-six years, Pete now serves as a teaching pastor/pastor at large. He is the author of The Emotionally Healthy Leader and two bestselling books: The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He is also the co-author of The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Course and The Emotionally Healthy Relationships Course.
Key Questions for Pete Scazzero:
- How did your concern over emotional health begin?
- Why does the church overlook leaders who are vulnerable?
Key Quotes from Pete Scazzero:
“God met me in the middle of two year journey…I realized i was an emotional infant leading a church.”
“If you’re not a loving, approachable, soft, weak in a sense, vulnerable person…you’re not mature.”
“Once I opened up my inner life to Jesus….and acknowledged the mess I was in, it was like a liberation.”
“Jesus told us to reject popularity…we are to follow him. We should be popular with him.”
“What leadership is, is very high level discipleship.”
“Without solid discipleship the church isn’t going anywhere. It’s like a car without an engine. It looks good but it’s not going anywhere.”
“I know pastors and leaders who are not developing a deep personal relationship with Jesus.”
“The pharisees were good at loving God. They were terrible at loving others.”
“Very few Christians have been discipled on how to love one another.”
“Our discipleship has to include every aspect of who we are. So if you leave out emotional…it’s not a biblical theology.”
Links Mentioned by Pete Scazzero in the Show:
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
Emotionally healthy relationships
Pete Scazzero on ChurchLeaders:
Free eBook: “The Emotionally Healthy Church Planter,” by Pete Scazzero