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Leadership, especially ministry leadership, can be a draining endeavor. This is not to say that leadership is not joyful or fulfilling, but if leaders are not careful, they can allow the gift and blessing of leadership to rob them physically, spiritually, and relationally.
Another often overlooked area many church leaders suffer is emotional health. The continual demands upon the leader take an emotional toll and many times the leader finds himself in an unhealthy emotional state and this inevitably affects him personally, his family, and his ministry.
As with spiritual, mental, and relational health, a wise leader will give attention to emotional health.
The continual demands upon the leader take an emotional toll and many times the leader finds themselves in an unhealthy emotional state and this inevitably affects them personally, in their family, and in ministry.
Peter Scazzero (The Emotionally Healthy Leader, 25) describes the emotionally unhealthy leader as, "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."
Scazzero goes on to give four characteristics of an emotionally unhealthy leader. As you are reading these characteristics take a few moments to consider your own state. Do any of these describe you?
The four characteristics of an emotionally unhealthy leader are 1) low self-awareness, 2) prioritize ministry over marriage or singleness 3) do more activity for God than their relationship with God can sustain, and 4) lack of a work/Sabbath rhythm.
When a leader has low self-awareness, he is unaware of his inner life. He is oblivious to or is not concerned with the "why" behind his thoughts, motivations, words, or actions.
A lack of self-awareness has a wide range of destruction beyond self, as an individual reacts inappropriately, says something off the cuff, or begins to shut down emotionally. The emotionally healthy leader is self-aware and has the intrapersonal maturity to see themselves from the inside out.
When your ministry takes priority over your marriage or singleness, you are moving to become an emotionally unhealthy leader. This is because you have begun to place ministry doing over being. Marriage or singleness is a gift from the Lord, given to each of us to grow us into the person God desires.
Marriage and singleness affect our being. If we remove our marriage or singleness from who we are and try to separate it from our ministry then we lose something, both in the ministry and relationship. If we begin to view our spouse as a tool for the ministry, may the Holy Spirit raise the red flag of warning in our hearts and help us see we have misplaced our values.
I will combine Scazzero's numbers three and four. As a leader, many times we take our value in the amount of bullet points we can check off of our to-do lists each day. What we don't see is that too often we are engaged in more activity than we are spiritually prepared to handle.
We begin to notice this is the case when we rush through our devotion time, begin to make excuses for not having devotion time, substitute sermon or ministry preparation for alone time with the Lord, or begin to move away from our accountability partner.
Every Sunday I tell my church, "Our time in the Word directly correlates to our walk with Christ" and the same is true for us as leaders. Similarly, if we fail to enjoy a biblical day of rest, we are violating God's Word and are saying we know better than God. God has given us the exact amount of time each day to accomplish what he desires for us to accomplish.
Failing to rest increases tension and anxiety, along with physical and relational strains. God gave us a day of rest for a reason, so let us be wise and enjoy our time of rest with the Lord.
As leaders, it is imperative we remain emotionally healthy and we can do so by walking humbly with the Lord and allowing him to minister to us by having self-awareness, prioritizing ministry, diligently and intentionally walking with the Lord, and taking a day of rest.
References: Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015).
 | Brad Delaughter serves as Lead Pastor of First Baptist Church De Soto, MO. Brad is married to his bride, Kristin, and together they have 4 crazy kids (Jackson, Michaela, Jase, and Jacob). In addition to serving as Lead Pastor, Brad also serves as a hospital chaplain, is the Director for National Sustainability and Missouri Team Lead for Prison Seminaries Foundation and is an adjunct professor for New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Learn More » |
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