Why do churches with sincere faith, gifted leaders, and strong theology still split?

In this powerful episode of the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, Pete Scazzero exposes a hard truth many leaders have experienced but rarely name: church fractures are rarely about doctrine or vision—they are about formation.

Drawing from decades of pastoral leadership and personal failure, Pete explains why spiritual maturity without emotional maturity is unsustainable. Churches don’t split because people don’t love Jesus. They split because leaders and communities lack the emotionally healthy skills needed to love one another well under pressure, conflict, disappointment, and power dynamics.

This episode explores why skills like incarnational listening, clarifying expectations, understanding how family history shapes leadership, and engaging in clean conflict are essential for healthy culture. Pete shares stories from his own leadership journey, including a painful church split that could have been prevented if these skills had been in place.

If you’re a pastor or leader longing to build a church culture that thrives—not just for a season, but for generations—this episode offers wisdom, hope, and a clear next step forward.

👇 Explore more at emotionallyhealthy.org
📅 Join our next webinar: emotionallyhealthy.org/webinar

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

Around the world, churches are working hard to make disciples, lead faithfully, and impact their communities. Yet many leaders are exhausted, relationships are strained, and spiritual growth feels shallow or stalled. Why?

In this episode, Pete Scazzero addresses a core truth that often goes unnamed: emotional health is the missing link in the global church. Drawing from his own painful leadership crisis and decades of ministry experience, Pete explains why it’s impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. He explores how unaddressed emotional issues limit discipleship, distort leadership, and quietly undermine the church’s witness—no matter how strong our theology or vision may be.

In this conversation, Pete unpacks:

• Why emotional health is foundational—not optional—to spiritual maturity
• How cultural, theological, and leadership blind spots keep the church stuck
• The biblical and theological roots of emotionally healthy spirituality
• What emotionally healthy leadership looks like in real-life ministry
• How redefining success can transform churches and communities

Pete challenges leaders to slow down, go beneath the surface, and embrace emotional health as God’s pathway to deeper transformation—personally, relationally, and globally.
If you long to see a healthier, more Christlike church—and know it must start with you—this episode will reframe how you think about discipleship, leadership, and success.

Listen now and take your next step toward building emotionally healthy leaders and churches around the world.

▶️ Learn more about Emotionally Healthy Discipleship and spiritual maturity
http://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/mature

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

As leaders, we want to make wise, Spirit-led decisions that move our ministries forward. But without realizing it, we often fall into patterns of planning that keep us stuck—repeating the same mistakes year after year.

In this episode, Pete Scazzero gets painfully honest about the five planning mistakes that hindered him for years—and how these missteps continue to trap leaders today:

1. Insufficiently preparing
2. Flippantly defining success
3. Ignoring the most important work—listening to Jesus together
4. Skimming on development
5. Failing to anchor vision in calendars, limits, and next steps

Pete shares the lessons he’s learned the hard way through decades of leadership in the local church and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. With clarity, candor, and practical wisdom, he offers a better way forward—one that’s rooted in prayerful discernment, emotional maturity, and thoughtful preparation.

If you're tired of spinning your wheels and ready to do the deeper work of strategic planning in God's way, this episode is for you.
Listen now and take your next step toward leading with greater clarity, peace, and purpose.

Resources & Links Mentioned:
Free EH Leader Planning & Decision-Making Guide: https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leader
EH School of Leadership: https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/school
Next EH Webinar: https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/webinar

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

👉FREE DOWNLOAD: Craft a Rule of Life for You and Your Team - emotionallyhealthy.org/rule

Most pastors today are trained in strategies, systems, and leadership models that promise church growth—but often leave the soul malnourished.

In this episode, I share a deeply personal and urgent message from a live talk I gave to pastors around the world who are moving beyond using the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Course as a tool—and toward building a deep culture of emotional health and spiritual formation in their churches.

What if the future of church leadership doesn’t look like the latest model, but like something ancient? What if the way forward requires going back?

I unpack how, for over 1,100 years, the church’s most influential leaders were not trained in classrooms—but in monastic communities of prayer, silence, and deep formation. And I lay out the implications for us today as we discern the next faithful steps in shaping a new kind of leadership pipeline rooted in being before doing.

This is more than theory—it’s shaping the future direction of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

Interruptions. We hate them. They mess with our schedules, our comfort, our control. But what if the interruptions in your life are actually invitations from God?

In this episode of the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, Pete Scazzero unpacks how the Christmas story is filled with divine disruptions—from Mary and Joseph, to Herod, to the Magi, and even the religious leaders of the day. Each response to interruption reveals something profound about our own leadership, our spiritual formation, and the God we serve.

Pete invites you to consider:

• What interruptions are coming your way right now?
• Are you resisting, ignoring, or receiving them?
• And what practices can help you stop, listen, and respond like Mary did: “May it be to me as you have said.”

This episode is a vital listen as we enter the holidays and close out the year. God is still interrupting lives—and He may be trying to get your attention.

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

In this episode of the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, Pete Scazzero challenges pastors and leaders with a simple yet radical invitation: "Do the work before the work."

This is more than a productivity principle. It's a call to integrity—where your outer leadership flows from your inner life with God. Through a compelling reflection on Jesus' own rhythms of solitude, limits, and Spirit-led decisions, Pete explores how the greatest threat to your leadership may not be your church, your staff, or your context—but your own unexamined inner life.

You'll hear the ancient tale of The Woodcarver, brought to life through Thomas Merton's lens, and discover how it mirrors the kind of inner work Jesus modeled in the wilderness.

If you've ever felt the pressure to perform, the pull of others' expectations, or the pace of a life without margin, this episode offers a pathway back to wholeness—and a leadership that's both fruitful and free.

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

In today's episode of The Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast, I'm joined by my longtime friend and the new President of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, Drew Hyun, for a conversation unlike any we've ever released.

This is a new season for EHD—one marked by fresh leadership, expanding vision, and a renewed commitment to forming leaders around the world in a deep, beneath-the-surface discipleship. Drew and I look back on our 24-year history, the shaping influence of New Life Fellowship, and the surprising road that led him to carry this movement forward. You'll also hear how church planting, crisis, and personal formation prepared him for this moment.

In part two, we go deeper into succession—what it demanded of both of us, the internal work required, and the lessons every pastor or leader needs when stepping into (or stepping out of) significant responsibility.

Whether you're navigating leadership transition, rebuilding your soul, or discerning your next step with EHD, this episode offers a hopeful and honest invitation to join what God is doing in this new season.

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/

Leadership succession is one of the most sacred — and most difficult — tasks for any pastor or ministry leader.

In this episode, I share the behind-the-scenes story of my second major succession — passing the baton of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship to Drew Hyun as our new President. I've rarely seen a succession done well. And that's exactly why I knew I had to do it differently — with prayer, intentionality, and surrender.

I walk through both the joy and the deep pain of letting go. I reflect on the lessons learned from my first succession at New Life Fellowship, the emotional disorientation that followed, and the profound spiritual formation that only comes through grief and relinquishment.

This is not a leadership technique. It's a spiritual crucible. A death and resurrection.

Whether you're years away from stepping down or you're mentoring the next generation now, this episode will help you face your limits, resist control, and steward your calling with integrity — for the sake of Jesus' mission in the world.

Every leader will face succession. The question is not if, but when.
Let's do it well.

The SEHL is a 16-week online course for leaders who want to deepen their life with Jesus while gaining practical tools to disciple others. Designed to help foster a healthy, sustainable ministry culture, the course includes teaching, guided practices, and small-group conversations, and live Zoom sessions with the EHD team.

Apply by February 15
https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/leadershipschool/