Before you read these notes understand a few things:
1 – A great deal of this material…most of it is taken from Peter Scazzero’s book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality  - the personal examples are mine, but similar to his in the book…because most of us are a lot more alike than we think
2 – I recommend that you should buy your own copy at some point this year as we will continue to go in depth with the book this year and even more so next year in our family groups. To grow the most this year your own copy of the book will be needed.
3 – My notes don’t always = clarity; because I am speaking at midweek with these notes sometimes I forget to finish a story on paper or clearly write what I know I will clearly say; most of you know I prefer to preach with very few notes, so to write this much is very different for me – if things are unclear email or call me and we can talk at length about what is “missing”
4 – These are major issues – there is a lot to understand, take it slow, practice these concepts daily and the transformation will take place over time. 
5 – I believe in you and how God will work in you and through you for His glory and your growth

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality – 
It’s a mouthful – how does that combination of words affect you? Do you think in terms of your spiritual health and your emotional health? Do you see how the two are connected?
We are beginning a journey, a study, and hopefully opening a new chapter in our spiritual lives that will radically change our relationship with God for the better. This book study I pray will be a part of a transformation of every individual in our church – now and to come – that enriches our life experience with Jesus.     Ephesians 3:14-21
For too long – some of us all our lives – we have settled for growing in our knowledge of God as the whole package – and as we continued to struggle with the same issues – usually emotional issues – we grow frustrated with why our growing knowledge is not helping us overcome issues – anger, cowardice, selfishness, resentment, bitterness, lack of forgiveness, shame, guilt, ect.
There needs to be a combination of spiritual growth along with emotional growth – if we add to our knowledge without growing in our emotions, it can be a deadly combination to your relationship with God and others around you. This is an area of our church community that is somewhere between widespread and total saturation. There are some in our fellowship who have a better handle on this – most notably those who are older who are farther along emotionally – but we all have room to grow – most of us have a lot of room.
Jesus asks the paralytic by the pool if he wanted to get well – and Jesus asks us that same question about our emotional health – you have to answer yes, to have faith, and to take the journey. 
We will begin tonight by thinking about one of the major issues facing us – the problem with emotionally unhealthy spirituality
Ellen and I have plenty of stories where we “lost Ben and/or Payton” because we were focused on some task that seemed to be the right thing – when we should have been attending to our family. One particular event happened in 2003 – we were trying to study the Bible with a couple, we had a very busy day – there was a lot going on in the church – I had been gone most of the day and came home just in time for the study which was probably going to be rushed …but we wanted to “make it happen” a theme of our training in the ministry.
When I came home Ellen shared that as she was trying to do three things at once she had been in a rush coming down the stairs and had fallen while carrying Ben. Seeing that we had minutes to spare before our guests arrived…I asked her if she was okay…she said sore...but yes…is Ben okay?…”he cried a little”…but yes he seems okay -so I went to change and get started setting the table – didn’t check on my 3 year old son – our friends came over, we sat down and started dinner and Ben came hopping in on one foot, the other foot dangling in mid-air completely swollen and broken in two places. Dinner ended and as we went to the hospital filled with guilt that I hadn’t even checked on him – I thought…”what if the injury had been internal?” 
We’ve had other close calls where we denied how we were really feeling – to the point of actually lying, saying we could do things or would do things, or wanted to do things – when we really didn’t want to, didn’t have time to ect. 
I think many of you have been in the same position over the years…where we made decisions based on what others thought of us? Doing things that were not rational, normal, or even feasible. When we have said yes to things when we should have said no!
The sad truth is that Ben’s foot and other close calls did not really change me. It has taken some drastic events in our life to produce in me the awareness that something in me was deeply wrong.
But sometimes pretending to be strong – pretending to have it all together was safer than honesty and vulnerability. I can see that I was stuck in an immature level of emotional and spiritual development – I was not being transformed the way I needed to be in my relationship with God, with Ellen, with the kids, and with many of you. I can look at some relationships – Tony, Jeremy, Kelly, and Pat – where I grew some emotionally because of extended time talking on a deeper level and I am both grateful and proud of those friendships – but they are not everything I want them to be. And I doubt that many of you have been able to grow emotionally close to many people because that simply hasn’t been the impetus of the church since its inception in Knoxville or in other places /or denominations for that matter.
The issues and conflicts that I see and hear about on a continual basis as the minister in this church and in other churches stem from emotionally unhealthy spirituality.
Why have we had so many church leavers? I estimate 60-70% of those baptized in the ICOC have left over the last 25 years. Large and small churches – some people simply do not want to follow Jesus – they are the path...the word never really gets in there, they are shallow soil and fade quickly – but most “church leavers” are the third soil – they just don’t develop the heart for Jesus…they have genuine commitment for Jesus but never develop a life of transforming relationships with Jesus and others – faith and love must grow mentally, spiritually, socially, physically and emotionally.
Other are “church leavers” who never leave – they simply become inactive – they quit internally – they passively hang on, they can’t quite figure out what’s missing – but they are looking.
Sadly a third group – reject the faith all together – they feel stuck or trapped in the spiritual journey – they are hurt by the pride, condemnation, opinionated brothers and sisters who are not acting like Jesus around them. Starbucks, the mountains, ect seemed like just as good an option for serenity.
I have had my moments of wanting to be a church leaver…pain beyond what you will know in 2003, 2004, 2005…and beyond.
My training had been – find a solution, push forward, find the key, turn it around – more input, circle the wagons, baptize your way out of it, hire some staff, grow in these ministry areas – but whatever you do don’t over-analyze the situation – avoid the paralysis of analysis – there is too much to do to waste time really digging around in my own mind and heart to figure out what I’m really feeling and what I really need. We claim we need follow Psalm 46 “be still and know that I am God”, but are we really doing that daily?
Very few people emerge out of their families emotionally whole or mature –divorce, anger, sheltering, death, abuse (verbal, emotional, physical, sexual) We even need to consider our mother and father and how they were raised and how their emotional stability effected us – sometimes you have to go back in order to go forward – look at your sibs – we can often see their dysfunction more than our own…but we fell off the same tree. 
Most of us came to faith at some point in our lives – convinced that everything from this point on would be different – the old has gone the new has come – we plunged into fellowship, bible study, evangelism, bible talk/family groups, all night prayers. But these activities rarely touched my emotional needs, deep things were rarely talked about – that was more for people who “needed counseling” – in this church…talk to Eli…emotional behavior, emotional health – that seemed to belong in a professional counselor’s office.
Our church protested in 2003 – but we protested the physical injustice and abuse and didn’t fully understand emotional abuse – we looked at growing mentally but not emotionally – we considered fundamental changes to our approaches but not the fundamental of emotional growth. 
So as the minister – unaware of my own needs and not tuned into the needs from the emotionally healthy perspective of spirituality – began my quest for answers to bring health to the church – 
1-	More Bible study – GPA (grace and peace in abundance) through knowledge of God
2-	Figure our small groups – poor leadership dynamics of the past – everyone using their gifts 100%
3-	Teach and focus on grace – we’re weak in this area
4-	Teach and focus on the Holy Spirit – we’re weak in this area
5-	Grow in worship – Sundays and Wednesdays need to get better
6-	Change the heart of the church for benevolence
7-	Be inspiring – have great classes, discipleship training
8-	We need to crank up evangelism again – campus ministry intern
9-	Create powerful singles/ campus / teen ministries
All of these have biblical truth –all of them help in our development. But all of them can also add a layer in your protective armor to avoid deep spiritual change – and there is a continued lack of maturity.
Iceberg model – 10% -just as we usually only see the tip of the iceberg physically in the artic, we typically only see about 10% of who we are emotionally unless we really spend a lot of time looking and digging.  If you look at all of the scriptures on sin – 9 of 10 are from within, from the heart, non-physical – emotionally based – this is who we are – the other 10% is what we do – they are easier to change. When I studied the Bible in 1995 I stopped using drugs immediately – but I am a conflict avoider to this day…working on it.
2008 began to wear on me even as some of the physical things of the church began to change – 
1.	I was exhausted –mentally, physically, emotionally – led me to be unhappy a lot…but still putting on a happy face – Ellen could see it, feel it, and she kept asking – Jesus yoke, perfectly crafted for me did not feel easy or light most days – I talked to brothers about a sabbatical, which I thought (in the past) was for weak people…I was weak
2.	Ellen was lonely – disconnected form a husband who was emotionally guarded and distant – she was frustrated and wanted more from me, from church – and she tried to confront me, asking me for breakthrough but I didn’t really listen – till she got a point where she wanted to quit because there was nothing else to do; nowhere to go
Ben’s lack of mental development is obvious once you look for it – on the surface he looks like a typical child. From across the room he make act like a typical 9 year old – but get him in a room of 9 year olds…and you can see it clearly – he is autistic, he has issues
Our lack of emotional development is not so obvious when we first meet people – but the longer we are with them the more it comes to the surface.
We have been trained for the most part to deal with things this way – fact, faith, feelings…in that order. Looking at facts first we make most of our decisions – never coming close to dealing with our feelings. The Bible says it – I must do it. Sometimes we actually need to get to the faith level where the facts don’t seem so clear but we know what our faith tells us is right so we do what we think is right – again this does not reach the deep feeling level. Rarely do we allow our feelings to get involved in our decision making process – we take Jeremiah 17 very literally…so what if God later in Jeremiah says he will give us a new heart that he entrusts us with his message. So we either become stuffers or inflictors of our feelings – some are both. We don’t deal with emotions at all, we are overly emotional often, or we “go volcano” on one another – stuffing till we explode. 
God wants to meet us in our emotion – to help us in sadness, anger, depression, joy, happiness, ect. We need to grasp how God wants us to combine emotional and spiritual health. Read that again slowly…
Ephesians 5:22-23 – The NIV and the Message help show how God’s calling us…
Love = affection for others
Joy = exuberance for life
Peace = serenity
Patience = a willingness to stick things out
Kindness = a sense of compassion in the heart
Goodness = a conviction that basic holiness permeates people 
Faithfulness = involved in loyal commitments
Gentleness = not needing to force our way in life
Self-control = able to marshal and direct our energies wisely

God promises if we will do life his way – even if it feels hard initially – then our lives will be beautiful – how is the fruit of the spirit a reality in your life? Consider each one and how you feel daily.

A spiritual walk without emotional health – one that allows deep layers of our lives to be untouched by God – will have tragic results – but we can see that when we hit walls in our relationship with God and with others – that they are gifts from God: he is trying to help us see our need to grow and connect.

Don’t let the pain become unbearable before you decide to move forward – we need to see the truth of our heart’s condition. We need to thank God for his grace and mercy to this point –but use them to become aware of who we are and what we need – the courage to be honest and allow the Spirit to help us see our needs – below the surface – help us to grasp how high, wide, deep, and long Jesus love is for us personally – our experience. 

Focus for the Next 28 Days
Prayer – Courage and strength to face the challenge of growing emotionally; to know the love of Christ in your in-most being the eso – soul level , inner person, inmost self

Bible study – Psalm 46 & 119, Ephesians 1-3, Romans 8, James 1

Spiritual Meditation – Be still every day – 10 minutes a day – don’t read, semi-prayer; no radio, TV, phone; not in the car or shower – not in Panera or Starbucks – undistracted – no kids – and think about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit / who He is and who you are – 30 days…300 minutes…5 hours

Eli’s thoughts on meditation on Wednesday nights have been very helpful – 
•	Focus on your breathing, very still, very calm, very controlled
•	Focus on one continual thought –ex: “give thanks to the Lord” – and say that on each breath
•	Find a quiet place to limit distraction – when distracted gently lead your thoughts back to the train of thought, don’t get upset because your thoughts may wander
•	Posture is important – sit up straight…it helps