The Emotionally Healthy Leader Quotes

“who you are is more important than what you do. Why? Because the love of Jesus in you is the greatest gift you have to give to others. Who you are as a person — and specifically how well you love — will always have a larger and longer impact on those around you than what you do. Your”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“For example, Jesus’ stunning success in teaching and feeding the 5,000 at the beginning of John 6 is followed just a few paragraphs later by a corresponding numerical failure: “At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him” (John 6:66 NLT). Jesus didn’t wring his hands and question his preaching strategy; he remained content, knowing he was in the Father’s will. He had a larger perspective on what God was doing. Success isn’t always bigger and better. The”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Fire What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between, as much as the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fuel, and absence of the fuel together, that make fire possible. We only need lay a log lightly from time to time. A fire grows simply because the space is there, with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn can find its way. 12 Judy Brown”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“We lead more out of who we are than out of what we do, strategic or otherwise. If we fail to recognize that who we are on the inside informs every aspect of our leadership, we will do damage to ourselves and to those we lead.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Throughout the history of the church, Christians have tended to elevate the importance of one over the other. For the first 1,500 years of the church, singleness was considered the preferred state and the best way to serve Christ. Singles sat at the front of the church. Marrieds were sent to the back.4 Things changed after the Reformation in 1517, when single people were sent to the back and marrieds moved to the front — at least among Protestants.5 Scripture, however, refers to both statuses as weighty, meaningful vocations. We’ll spend more time on each later in the chapter, but here is a brief overview. Marrieds. This refers to a man and woman who form a one-flesh union through a covenantal vow — to God, to one another, and to the larger community — to permanently, freely, faithfully, and fruitfully love one another. Adam and Eve provide the clearest biblical model for this. As a one-flesh couple, they were called by God to take initiative to “be fruitful . . . fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Singles. Scripture teaches that human beings are created for intimacy and connection with God, themselves, and one another. Marriage is one framework in which we work this out; singleness is another. While singleness may be voluntarily chosen or involuntarily imposed, temporary or long-term, a sudden event or a gradual unfolding, Christian singleness can be understood within two distinct callings: • Vowed celibates. These are individuals who make lifelong vows to remain single and maintain lifelong sexual abstinence as a means of living out their commitment to Christ. They do this freely in response to a God-given gift of grace (Matthew 19:12). Today, we are perhaps most familiar with vowed celibates as nuns and priests in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church. These celibates vow to forgo earthly marriage in order to participate more fully in the heavenly reality that is eternal union with Christ.6 • Dedicated celibates. These are singles who have not necessarily made a lifelong vow to remain single, but who choose to remain sexually abstinent for as long as they are single. Their commitment to celibacy is an expression of their commitment to Christ. Many desire to marry or are open to the possibility. They may have not yet met the right person or are postponing marriage to pursue a career or additional education. They may be single because of divorce or the death of a spouse. The apostle Paul acknowledges such dedicated celibates in his first letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7). Understanding singleness and marriage as callings or vocations must inform our self-understanding and the outworking of our leadership. Our whole life as a leader is to bear witness to God’s love for the world. But we do so in different ways as marrieds or singles. Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This may be a radically new concept for you, but stay with me. God intends this rich theological vision to inform our leadership in ways few of us may have considered. Before exploring the connections between leadership and marriage or singleness, it’s important to understand the way marriage and singleness are commonly understood in standard practice among leaders today.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“____ 2.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“¿Cómo podemos esperar que cambiaremos al mundo para Cristo, si nosotros mismos no nos dejamos cambiar por él? Para tener alguna esperanza de tratar debidamente con los miembros de los equipos que sean inmaduros o problemáticos, tenemos que comenzar primero por nuestra propia transformación espiritual.”
― Peter Scazzero, El líder emocionalmente sano: Cómo transformar tu vida interior transformará profundamente tu iglesia, tu equipo y el mundo (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“Just because we have the gifts and skills to build a crowd and create lots of activity does not mean we are building a church or ministry that connects people intimately to Jesus.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“The emotionally unhealthy leader is someone who operates in a continuous state of emotional and spiritual deficit, lacking emotional maturity and a “being with God” sufficient to sustain their “doing for God.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Spiritual deficits typically reveal themselves in too much activity. Unhealthy leaders engage in more activities than their combined spiritual, physical, and emotional reserves can sustain. They give out for God more than they receive from him.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“You Can’t Live at Warp Speed without Warping Your Soul”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“You Can’t Do God’s Work Your Way without Paying a Steep Price”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“In what ways does my current pace of life and leadership enhance or diminish my ability to allow God’s will and presence full scope in my life?”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“the love of Jesus in you is the greatest gift you have to give to others. Who you are as a person — and specifically how well you love — will always have a larger and longer impact on those around you than what you do. Your being with God (or lack of being with God) will trump, eventually, your doing for God every time.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“he entrusted the outcome of his circumstances, problems, and ministry to the Father. And as a result, every action Jesus took was rooted in a place of deep rest and centeredness out of his relationship with God.4”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“I set aside time not only to create specific goals but to think through the steps and time required to reach those objectives.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Parker Palmer lo expresa muy bien: Hay al menos una cosa que me ha quedado clara: el cuidado de sí mismo no es nunca un acto egoísta; sencillamente es una buena mayordomía del único don que tenemos; fui puesto en la tierra para poderles ofrecer ese don a los demás. Cada vez que podamos escuchar a nuestro verdadero yo y darle el cuidado que necesita, no lo hacemos solo para nosotros mismos, sino también para los muchos otros cuyas vidas tocamos.”
― Peter Scazzero, El líder emocionalmente sano: Cómo transformar tu vida interior transformará profundamente tu iglesia, tu equipo y el mundo (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“Mandamiento enfermizo 2: Lo que haces es más importante que lo que eres”
― Peter Scazzero, El líder emocionalmente sano: Cómo transformar tu vida interior transformará profundamente tu iglesia, tu equipo y el mundo (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“Un líder emocionalmente enfermo es alguien que opera bajo un estado continuo de déficit emocional y espiritual, y al que le faltan la madurez emocional y el «estar con Dios» lo suficiente como para sostener su «hacer para Dios».”
― Peter Scazzero, El líder emocionalmente sano: Cómo transformar tu vida interior transformará profundamente tu iglesia, tu equipo y el mundo (Emotionally Healthy Spirituality)

“What might change in your context if you were to define success not by the numbers but as radically doing God’s will? What are the markers of success to which God is calling you and your team? What fears or anxieties are you aware of as you even consider such questions?”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“How could there possibly be one cookie-cutter definition of success in so many diverse circumstances? And yet, that is the standard we too often apply when we use only external markers to define and measure success. What you need to remember is that it is your unique situation, and God’s will for you in it, that will define what God considers success — both for you personally and for the church, ministry, or team you lead. The challenge every leader and team must face is undertaking the slow and painstaking discernment work to identify precisely what that is for you at any given point in time.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“The degree to which you recognize and engage your own shadow is the degree to which you can free others to face theirs.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“We cannot engage in plans and decisions that honor God until we prepare our hearts and are intentional about keeping them soft and responsive to his leading.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Located on 9th Avenue in New York City, B& H Photo is the largest non-chain photo and video equipment store in the United States and the second largest in the world —only Yodobashi Camera in downtown Tokyo is bigger. The owners, along with many of their employees, are Hasidic Jews who dress just as their eighteenth-century ancestors did in Eastern Europe. On any given day, 8,000 to 9,000 people pass through the front door. Yet 70 percent of their business is online, serviced by a 200,000-square-foot warehouse located nearby in Brooklyn. Even in a competitive marketplace, B& H won’t conduct business on the Sabbath or on about a half-dozen Jewish holidays during the year. They close their doors at 1 p.m. on Fridays and keep them closed all day Saturday, the biggest shopping day of the week. During Sabbath, customers can peruse the B& H website, but they can’t make an online order. Recently a customer asked the B& H director of communications how they could close not just the retail store but also the website on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the busiest shopping day of the year. The director simply replied, “We respond to a higher authority.” 17”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Whenever I feel discouraged in my own progress, I remember what one Trappist monk said to me as he reflected on his sixty years of life dedicated to prayer, “I am only a beginner.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“We view conflict as a sign that something is wrong, so we do whatever we can to avoid it. We prefer to ignore difficult issues and settle for a false peace, hoping our difficulties will somehow disappear on their own. They don’t.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Watch for the internal signs that you are exceeding your limits, doing more for God than your abiding relationship with him can sustain (for example, lack of peace, irritability, rushing). Make it your first priority and goal to seek his face and to do his will each day.”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Like the creation, man’s games are an expression of freedom . . . for playing relates to the joy of the creator with his creation and the pleasure of the player with his game. Like creation, games combine sincerity and mirth, suspense and relaxation. The player is wholly absorbed in his game and takes it seriously, yet at the same time he transcends himself and his game, for it is after all only a game.22”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“Married couples bear witness to the depth of Christ’s love. Their vows focus and limit them to loving one person exclusively, permanently, and intimately. Singles — vowed or dedicated — bear witness to the breadth of Christ’s love. Because they are not limited by a vow to one person, they have more freedom and time to express the love of Christ to a broad range of people. Both marrieds and singles point to and reveal Christ’s love, but in different ways. Both need to learn from one another about these different aspects of Christ’s love. This”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World

“The emotionally unhealthy leader is someone who operates in a continuous state of emotional and spiritual deficit, lacking emotional maturity and a “being with God” sufficient to sustain their “doing for God.” When”
― Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World