10 Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality

Sometimes we need a reminder. This post by Stirred Up Leadership, blog of the US Willow Creek Association, was one of their most popular posts so we thought it was worth re-posting as a reminder for those of you in ministry.  Please make sure you’re taking time to care for yourself.

Angela, in explaining why she had not attended church for over five years, asked me privately, “Why is it that so many Christians make such lousy human beings?”

Jay, one of our church members, recently shared with me: “I was a Christian for twenty-two years. But instead of being a twenty-two year-old Christian, I was a one-year-old Christian twenty-two times! I just kept doing the same things over and over and over again.”

Ron, the brother of a member of the small group that meets in our home, upon hearing the title of this book, laughed: “Emotionally healthy spirituality? Isn’t that a contradiction?”

Our problem revolves around misapplied biblical truths that not only damage our closest relationships but also obstruct God’s work of profoundly transforming us deep beneath the iceberg of our lives.

THE TOP TEN SYMPTOMS OF EMOTIONALLY UNHEALTHY SPIRITUALITY

The pathway for your spiritual life I describe in the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality 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 two new spiritual disciplines to an already crowded life will not be enough. The enormousness 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 wreak havoc in our personal lives and our churches. The following are the top ten symptoms indicating if someone is suffering from a bad case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality:

1. Using God to run from God
2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear
3. Dying to the wrong things
4. Denying the past’s impact on the present
5. Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
6. Doing for God instead of being with God
7. Spiritualizing away conflict
8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure
9. Living without limits
10. Judging other people’s spiritual journey

Download entire chapter to read detailed descriptions of each symptom.

Pete Scazzero (@petescazzero)
Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in New York and author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

I Quit (Part 9) Summary & Applications

This week Geri and Pete Scazzero conclude the I Quit series and leave us with some life applications; that the basis of all the ‘I Quits’ is about being grounded in the love of God, and as we live more deeply in this love of God we are actually able to do the ‘quits’.

http://vimeo.com/21345454

I Quit (Part 8) Quit Trying To Live Someone Else's Life: Choose Your Destiny

The great calling in life is the will to be yourself - It is the great challenge to not be somebody else - Søren Kierkegaard

Living out your unique life is about being congruent, that you are the same person on the outside that you are on the inside. Think of Jesus, who defied the expectations that everyone had for him, from his family, to crowds, to disciples, to the religious environment. Everybody had a life script for Jesus, but he was able to hear the Father’s voice and live out his unique life.

Choose to embrace your destiny in God.



http://vimeo.com/21064027

I Quit (Part 7) Quit Faulty Thinking: Choose The Real

It isn't what you don't know that hurts you. It’s what you know that isn’t so. [Mark Twain]

Unless we quit faulty thinking, the power of God in our lives is thwarted, it’s blocked. We don’t change easily, but quitting faulty thinking has enormous implications. Many of us have wrong thinking about God, about ourselves, and about other people. Once we begin to break this, God’s power by the Holy Spirit is able to come and invade us and change us.



http://vimeo.com/20799166

I Quit (Part 6) Quit Over-functioning: Choose to Let Go

Over-functioning is doing for others what they can and should do for themselves. But it’s not loving well. It’s tricky because it can be hard to see a problem, as over-functioning often disguises itself as caring, serving, helping and loving. As Christians we want to do things for others, but we really run into problems when we cross the line of doing what people can do for themselves, and it’s often coming from a place inside ourselves that is anxious.

http://vimeo.com/20646222



I QUIT (Part 5) Quit Blaming: Choose To Take Responsibility

Blaming is a surface behaviour that we all engage in. When something isn’t going our way, we place the blame on all manner of things like our parents, spouses, friends, co-workers, the traffic, and even God. From little blaming, ‘who touched my earphones’, to bigger blaming of our childhood and the economy; blaming is everywhere – in every class and race, like an epidemic. It’s a sin we all share.

http://vimeo.com/19850717

I QUIT (Part 4) Quit Denying Anger, Sadness, Fear: Choose Your Humanity

This message focuses on Psalm 22, and looks at the wide range of emotions that God has given us. Pete and Geri encourage us to stop denying the 'difficult' emotions of anger, sadness and fear, but rather integrate those parts into our person. God created us with a whole range of emotions but the problem is that we don't all experience or process them in healthy ways.



http://vimeo.com/19437285

I QUIT (Part 3) Quit Dying To The Wrong Things: Choose Delight

In this message Geri and Pete consider the assertion that if you’re going to choose what’s right, you’ve got to first quit what’s wrong. There is no easy way to become what Jesus intends for your life, but it does require radical and continual decisions to quit certain behaviours and ways of thinking.

http://vimeo.com/19171239

I QUIT (Part 2) Quit Lying: Choose Truth

Ever said to a person ‘Hey, you look great!’ but don’t really think they look great?! Or pretended you’re not angry, when in reality you really are?

This vimeo sermon is number two in a series from New Life Fellowship, the church home of Pete and Geri Scazzero, authors of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. This message looks at the reasons of why we lie, and discusses how to learn to speak truth.

http://vimeo.com/18935087

I QUIT (Part 1) Quit Being Afraid Of What Others Think: Choose His Love

This vimeo is from New Life Fellowship, the church home of Pete and Geri Scazzero. Based on I QUIT, a newly released book that highlights the propensity of Christians to pretend 'everything is fine' and the need to learn the importance of Biblical quitting, this sermon focuses on quitting our fear of what others think of us.

http://vimeo.com/18679957