One thing that sets leaders apart is an instinctive understanding that progress rarely happens by accident. In other words, if a person or organization is going to achieve something, there usually needs to be a plan in place to reach the goal. The Christian life is no different. If we want to advance in the Christian life, we require a plan or strategy to move forward. A “Rule of Life” (or what I will later call a “Life-Plan”) is a plan of action that helps us embody the life of Christ in our actions, feelings, thoughts, and imagination. In essence, a Rule of Life isn’t just a to-do list to complete someday, but an active and embodied way of engaging with everyday life.

One issue with theological education and many modern discipleship programs is that 90% of the focus is on studying the Bible, theology, pastoral care, liturgical options, and similar topics. There isn’t much time in the curriculum for real practice and truly living out the faith in everyday life. However, everyone knows that once you leave school, what really counts is how you apply what you’ve learned. It is the doing of the Christian life that matters most.

One of my favorite stories involves a colleague of mine who graduated from seminary and started a local church at exactly the same time I did. We had both been trained to start and run a specific kind of children’s program. Five years later, I was managing a program with over 100 children enrolled each week. When I met him at a meeting and asked how it was going, he responded, “We’re still thinking and praying about it.” When I retired from ministry, he was still thinking and praying, and the church was declining. In the life of discipleship, what matters is not what we think, but what we actually embody and do.

The Problem of an Unconscious Plan

In the past, I’ve written about what is sometimes called a “Rule of Life.” A rule of life is simply a plan for how we choose to live. Almost everyone who discusses this subject starts by saying that we all have a plan for living, whether we recognize it or not. The issue is that, for most of us, this plan or rule isn’t something we create intentionally; rather, it’s an unconscious result of how we were raised, the pressures from society, our obligations to family, children, colleagues, and others, as well as the expectations from organizations we belong to, like the church.

For many years, I followed an unwritten rule of life. It went something like this: “I wake up early and try to be one of the first people at the office. I’m usually there between 7:30 and 8 a.m. I work until 7 o’clock at night and try to be one of the last, if not the last, to leave. During the day, I aim to get an hour for lunch or exercise. I come home just before the children go to bed. Sometimes I have enough energy to tell them a story. Most of the time, I don’t. I work half of Saturday to meet my superiors’ expectations, and I take at least half of Sunday off to go to church.” No one ever told me I had to follow this rule. I never decided to adopt it. I didn’t write it down. I just lived by it.

The issue with this rule of life, which, by the way, was the rule of life for a pretty serious Christian, is that there wasn’t much truly Christian about it except maybe the sense of needing to take the family to church on Sunday mornings and join a Sunday school class. The rest of the time, I was just fulfilling the expectations set by my superiors and our success-oriented society.

Years ago, as the pastor of a church in a community with many recreational options, I had several church members whose lifestyles were somewhat different. Their rule of life was to work just enough hours to go hunting, fishing, boating, and enjoy other hobbies. Again, none of these people had a rule of life that said, “I organize my life around my hobbies.” But, in reality, that’s exactly their situation.

As a pastor, I’ve known many people who organize their lives around their children or grandchildren. They may not have a conscious rule of life that states they spend all their time trying to meet their children’s needs, but that’s exactly what they do. In my experience, many of these people are very serious Christians.

This is the problem with an unwritten rule of life: it’s easy to just do what others expect of you, what your family of origin trained you to do, or what your close friends believe you should be doing, or what our society thinks you should be doing. Becoming an Emotionally Healthy Disciple requires conscious decision-making and action to grow in Christ. To use a term we have used before, to become a well-differentiated Christian, you must be able to resist peer and other pressures to conform to expectations that are inconsistent with what you believe.

A  Problem with a “Personal Plan of Life”

About thirty-five years ago, I began following a personal rule for living out the Christian life. The rule I still adhere to is just a modified version of something I started working on back in seminary. I quickly realized an important thing about this personal life plan of mine: it was entirely my own. I didn’t share it with anyone, so there was no accountability for whether I actually followed it. In other words, it was completely subjective.

The rule of life I established many years ago was biblical, aligned with the church’s teachings, and a variation of rules that Christians have used for ages. The problem with my rule was that I didn’t follow it. I had it on my computer. Sometimes I carried it in my briefcase. Occasionally, I would look at it. Over time, I looked at it less and less because it was convicting to be reminded how far off from reality the rule was. I wasn’t really doing anything different from what I had been doing before I made a rule of life.

Personal rules of life are appealing in our society because we are very individualistic, and it seems to us that people should choose their own way of living. This overlooks the community aspect of any rule of life. When early monastics developed their rules, those rules were not personal. Pachomius, who wrote the first rule, lived in a community governed by it. Saint Augustine, who founded the Augustinian rule, lived in a community with about eight others who followed it. Saint Benedict, who led an order, initially started with a small group of people who held each other accountable and genuinely followed that rule of life. The same is true for every monastic rule throughout history. They were fundamentally communal rules.

If unconscious rules are impossible to follow, then strictly personal rules are impossible too. The reason is simple: I decide what the rule is and can change it whenever I want. In other words, I don’t really need to change or grow because of my rule. There is no accountability or community support for my growth and maturity in Christ. A better option for Christians is to join with others who are trying to follow a common rule.

The Rule/Action Gap

One crucial aspect of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship is recognizing that there is always a gap between what we believe we should do and what we are actually doing at any given moment. Change generally takes time and some pressure for most people. For real change to happen, not only must a plan for life be written down and agreed upon by more than one person, but it must also be reflected in individuals’ and the community’s actual behaviors.

This week in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, they talked about a five-stage process that characterizes personal change. It goes something like this:

1. We become aware of the need for personal change.
2. We think about what would be involved in making a change.
3. We come to value what a change would accomplish.
4. We failed to act because of what is called the action/behavioral gap.
5. We change our priorities so that we actually change our behavior.
6. We actually internalize and own the behavioral change we want to make.

Most people fail to change because they don’t realize how important the behavioral gap is or how hard it is to overcome ingrained habits. I believe that, in some ways, people who have been addicted to drugs or alcohol probably understand this problem better than most of us who have never experienced such episodes. I’ve had family members who tried to quit smoking. Generally speaking, they know they need to stop smoking, and they decide they need to stop sometime before they’re actually able to do so. This is because of the gap between what we know we should do and what we actually do.

Most of the addicts I have known who have recovered were in some kind of Twelve Step program where they met regularly with others with the same goal and who held them accountable for change. Those of us who want to overcome the problems of our culture and society need the same kind of social support.

A Functioning Plan (or Rule) of Life

To have a functional plan for life, we need to realize that social support is essential for personal change. We don’t have to go to a monastery; a Sunday school class, a small group, an accountability group, a professional group, or any other group where people can share openly and hold us accountable can suffice.

When Emotionally Healthy Discipleship introduces this idea, it highlights the fact that most Americans don’t like rules. The word “rule” comes from the Latin “regula,” which itself comes from a Greek word for “trellis.” Everyone who has ever tried to grow grapes knows that grapes grow on a trellis. You need a trellis if you want to harvest grapes. The trellis supports the grapes and arranges them so they can mature and be ready either to eat or to be turned into wine.

A rule of life is the same for Christians. It is simply an organized system designed to help us grow spiritually. For example, if I decide to pray for at least thirty minutes each day, that period acts as a standard to gauge my progress in my Christian walk. The same applies to attending church, reading the Bible, going to confession, being part of a small group, attending a Sunday school class, doing a silent retreat once a year, or any other activities we include in our plan of life. The plan provides support for cultivating the spiritual fruit we hope will flourish in our lives.

I’m jumping the gun a bit, but one of the churches Kathy and I often attend has a simple rule of life for its members. It’s not complicated; it includes about three or four things: attending church, taking communion, being part of a small group, and praying and studying the Bible daily. There isn’t much accountability involved, but the pastoral staff makes an effort to incorporate this rule of life into the church’s culture.

Recently, those of us involved in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship were informed that EHD is developing a rule of life for their pastoral leadership cohorts. It’s a way for EHD to provide its leaders and the leaders of churches deeply engaged in the program with a form of accountability in the Christian life and discipleship growth. I’m hopeful that it will prove effective. Occasionally, I used to attend an Episcopal church where some members were lay Benedictine Oblates. These lay oblates followed a rule of life. It was not the full Benedictine rule, nor did it require the frequent attendance at multiple worship services and the cycle of prayer, worship, and physical labor associated with a monastery. However, it does offer a level of accountability for those who choose to be part of it.

Creating an Emotionally Healthy Church or Organization

This is the final blog in this series on Emotionally Healthy Relationships. I hope readers have enjoyed it and that it has inspired some to get involved in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. I believe it will bring significant benefits to you personally, to your church (if you have one), to your business (if you own one), to your school (if you’re part of one), and to any other organization you’re involved with. The next step for readers is to contact Emotionally Healthy Discipleship and sign up for the same leadership course that Kathy and I have been taking for the past year.

A word to senior pastors: no one believes that Emotionally Healthy Discipleship can be successfully integrated into a church and truly change its culture unless the senior leadership is entirely on board. Buying into it means more than just saying “it’s OK if you do it.” It involves spending enough time learning the materials so that you genuinely can’t lead the transformation of your church’s culture without it. It also means being willing to invest time in discipling your senior leadership—both staff and laypeople—so they can then make meaningful changes within the groups they lead.

One of the most insightful illustrations in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship highlights Jesus’s approach to making disciples. He didn’t spend all his time preparing sermons and preaching to large crowds. Although he did deliver sermons to large audiences, he dedicated significant time to being with 12 ordinary people. These twelve, who seemed like unlikely candidates, went on to establish what we now call the Christian church after the crucifixion and resurrection. Yes, they were empowered by the Spirit, but they also carried the memory of spending three years of their lives with Jesus.

This is the challenge of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: taking the time to slow down, become personally emotionally healthier, and then investing in personal relationships to build a leadership team that will transform your organization’s culture.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

One of my favorite aspects of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship involves conflict resolution. [1] Often, Christians believe that conflict indicates failure in a church, relationship, business, or any organization. In this way of thinking, conflict is rare and should be avoided. Although there is some truth to this, the larger truth is that conflict is part of human life. In fact, conflict is one of the ways people, relationships, businesses, churches, organizations, and even political communities grow. What matters is not whether conflict occurs but whether it is managed wisely and with a view toward greater wholeness, integrity, and harmony —personal and social.

Kathy and I have been married for about forty-six years, and I’ve been a lawyer, leader, pastor, and church leader for a little longer than that. Over the past half-century, I’ve had many opportunities to observe how conflict is handled poorly. For most of that time, I viewed conflict as a failure and believed that (usually myself) had failed. This belief made me both avoid conflict and feel threatened by it. Having emotionally healthy relationships has allowed me to see the entire problem from a different perspective.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

First of all, let’s examine a text. In the Beatitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9). As every first-year seminary student knows, the word translated as ‘peace’ in English comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Shalom,” which is often translated as ‘peace’. However, the idea of Shalom is much broader than just the absence of conflict. Shalom is a state in which everything is in its proper place. This helps us understand the nature of conflict and why we should not necessarily avoid it.

Conflict as a Warning Signal

When there’s conflict, shalom is absent. Usually, that absence of shalom indicates that something isn’t right. Something needs to change in my marriage or family. Something needs to change in my church. Something needs to change in my business. Something needs to change in our social organization. The presence of conflict isn’t just a problem to be solved; it’s a chance for personal and community growth. In other words, conflict is a warning sign that there is a lack of shalom and that we need to pay attention and take action to improve things. What’s important isn’t the conflict itself, but the root cause of the conflict.

Several times in my professional career, I’ve been involved in situations in which an organization was experiencing serious conflict. Interestingly, these conflicts are in some cases more than thirty years apart. However, they have some common characteristics:

1. Inside the organization, leaders and/or persons involved had a disagreement that they were not openly discussing or trying to resolve. Instead, they were involved in either manipulation or power struggles.
2. Organizational leaders and/or the persons involved lacked self-awareness about what was motivating their decisions, making them vulnerable to manipulation and imprudent actions.
3. The root of the conflict was often not the issue that sparked the conflict. In at least two instances, grief over a departing or former leader sparked conflict, as some mourned the loss while others took the chance to seize power. In both cases, the stated reason for the conflict was not the true cause and fear of change was a part of the unacknowledged cause of the conflict.
4. Organizational leadership and/or parties involved ignored the conflict until it erupted into an unmanageable situation. In other words, rather than face disagreements within the organization, they submerge those disagreements until the dysfunction reached the point where conflict was inevitable and uncontrollable. In most cases, once this point is reached. It’s also unsolvable and the organization will be damaged as a result.
5. Once the conflict broke out, instead of trying to understand the situation, many organizational leaders or persons involved simply took sides with one or more groups trying to gain control. After that, no one listened to anyone.

Learning to Dialogue in Difficult Situations

A wise older pastor once shared his observation about conflict in marriages. He said, “Most of the time, people ignore marital problems until the issue becomes so severe that counselors struggle to get them to communicate effectively and resolve the conflict. Most of the time, by the time they seek help, it’s already hopeless.” Unfortunately, my experience with all kinds of counseling and organizational conflict is exactly the same. By the time the conflict erupts, it’s often too late to fix the problem. The sad part is that most of the time, the issue could have been resolved—perhaps easily—if the parties had communicated earlier and better. In other words, most destructive conflicts are rooted in a failure of communication. The warden in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” so memorably said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” [2]

If communication failure is the problem, then communication success is the solution. In other words, leaders and organizations need to learn to communicate effectively, kindly, and wisely so that conflict can be either avoided or resolved and shalom restored, created, or enhanced.

Pete and Geri Scazzero, in Emotionally Healthy Relationships, have very helpfully set out a way to enhance communication in conflict even providing handouts and skits to show how the process works. [3] For many years, I have used a handout in regarding conflict for use in counseling that goes like this:

Rule 1: Be mindful of what you say. In any argument, avoid name-calling, insults, put-downs, or swearing. Putting the other party down or criticizing their character shows disrespect for their dignity. The best way to be careful with what you say is to refrain from speaking until you’ve clearly thought out the issue bothering you and even written down what you decided to discuss.[4]

Rule 2: Never resort to physical actions. Using physical force or threatening to do so—such as raising a fist or issuing a verbal threat—is completely unacceptable. Develop the self-control to manage your anger and behavior beforereaching this point. If anyone uses physical force or violence during a conflict, seek professional help. Force includes pushing, shoving, grabbing, hitting, punching, slapping, or restraining. It also includes actions like punching a hole in a wall, throwing objects, or damaging property out of anger. Acting out your anger in these ways breaks the other person’s boundaries and sense of safety. Everyone has the right to feel safe and free from abuse or physical danger in their relationships. Such behavior is a form of abuse.

Rule 3: Avoid anger, yelling, and similar behaviors. Expressing excessive anger or yelling only escalates any conflict. When emotions are running high, chances are nothing will be resolved. If you’re angry and feel like yelling, it’s best to step away and cool down. Keep in mind that what I consider yelling can be subjective. What seems like shouting to the other party might not feel that way to you. Maybe you’re unaware of how loud you sound. Or perhaps you grew up in a home where family members were loud and passionate, so talking loudly when upset feels normal. The other party’s experience is what counts here, however. If it feels like yelling to your spouse, then you are at least raising your voice, if not yelling. Consciously lower your voice. The meaning of your communication lies in how your message is actually landing with others. If you can’t tone it down because you are upset, then it is probably best to take a time-out.

Rule 4: Don’t hit below the belt. Everyone has vulnerable areas. Please avoid using your confidential knowledge of another party’s weaknesses and sensitivities, as it can hurt them and give you an unfair advantage. One reason for this is that it makes further conflict inevitable and, at the least, delays compromise.

Rule 5: Don’t play the Blame Game. Blaming the other party distracts from solving the problem at hand. It invites the other person to become defensive and escalates the conflict.

Rule 6: Never threaten divorce or abandonment (unless you truly mean it). During a heated marital argument, threatening to leave is manipulative and hurtful. It also introduces a negative option that should be avoided if possible. Such threats cause anxiety about abandonment and undermine your ability to resolve issues. They quickly diminish your partner’s confidence in your commitment. Trust, once broken this way, is hard to regain. It makes your relationship problems seem much worse than they actually are. This principle is equally applicable in organizational conflicts.

Rule 7: Don’t bring up the past. Stay in the present and resist the temptation to use the situation to raise other past issues. It’s discouraging to keep bringing up the past. You can’t change the past. You can only change today. You can look forward to a better future. Try to keep your focus on what can be done today to resolve the issue at hand and go forward from there. If you get off-topic, onto other topics, stop yourselves and agree to get back on track. You can always come back to other issues later.

If you do find yourself bringing up issues from the past, it is likely because those issues were never resolved in the first place. Things may have happened that you and your spouse never really talked about. Or you may have tried to talk about it in the past, but without fighting fair. This rule will be easier to follow going forward if you both commit to discussing issues as they arise rather than letting them fester.

This rule incorporates another rule: Every disagreement has to have a focus. One issue. It is not possible to resolve every issue between parties at one time. Be content with progress on one issue.

Rule 8: Talk about your feelings and experience, not the other party’s motives or experience. We all think we understand others’ motives and purposes. But the truth is, we don’t. We are only experts concerning our feelings, motives, and purposes, not anyone else’s. So, use words that describe how you feel, and what you want and need, not what the other party feels, wants, or believes. It may seem more straightforward to analyze your adversary than to analyze yourself, but interpreting another person’s thoughts, feelings, and motives will distract you from identifying your own underlying issues. It will likely invite defensiveness. More importantly, telling you’re the other party what he or she thinks, believes, or wants is presumptuous.  You are saying that you know your spouse’s inner world better than your spouse does. Instead, work on identifying your own unmet needs, feelings, and ways of thinking, and describe these needs and feelings to your spouse.

Rule 9: One person should speak at a time. During a discussion of differences, only one person should talk at a time. While one person is speaking, others should listen honestly and sympathetically—not just think about their reply. Take turns talking and listening so everyone can share their thoughts. Don’t start thinking about your next point or response while listening. Focus only on listening when it’s your turn.[5]

Rule 10: Keep an Open Mind and Be Willing to Compromise. Listening during an argument and putting yourself in the other person’s shoes is important. First, it helps you understand their point of view. Second, it shows that you are not rigidly attached to your own opinions. In other words, you are open to changing your mind. Finally, although there are times when one party is right and the other is wrong, it’s often possible for the parties to find a fair compromise. If the parties view any argument or disagreement as a conversation in search of a mutually agreeable solution, they are more likely to find a solution that benefits all concerned. [6]

A Witness to a Broken World

If Christians and others can find ways to renew a commitment to dialogue and conversation among people with differing viewpoints, we perform a valuable service to our society. There is no skill more lacking in our society than the ability to listen and engage in dialogue with others about difficult but important matters in the search for agreement or compromise.[7] This is one of the best ways we can incorporate the verse, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God,” into our lives.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). See also, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids. I cannot recommend these materials more highly to blog readers.

[2] Rosenberg, Stuart. 1967. Cool Hand Luke. United States: Warner Bros./Seven Arts.

[3] See, Peter and Geri Scazzero, “Clean Fighting Worksheet” (available through Emotionally Healthy Discipleship). See also in Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships: Discipleship that Deeply Changes Your Relationships with Others (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023), Appendix F. I have used my own take in this blog, which does not in any way indicate a lack of agreement with what Pete and Geri Scazzero have produced.

[4] See the discussion of the Ladder of Integrity, which is a wonderful tool for determining what the issue is and who to address a conflict in G. Christopher Scruggs, Journeying on the Path of Life “Integrity: The Well-Formed Disciple” https://gchristopherscruggs.com/?p=4186 (Posted November 10, 2025). Finally, if one desires to learn the Scazzero method there are helps on their website at www.emotionallyhealthy.org.

[5] See the discussion of Incarnational Listening in G. Christopher Scruggs, Journeying on the Path of Life: “Integrity: Listening to be a Better Disciple and Person” https://gchristopherscruggs.com/?p=4186 (Posted November 10, 2025)

[6] Chris Scruggs, Rules for a Fair Fight (Unpublished Counseling Handout, updated November 2025).

[7] In two entirely different contexts—those of political philosophy—I have written extensively about the issue of the lack of genuine dialogue in today’s discipleship theory and political culture. See G. Christopher Scruggs, Crisis of Discipleship: Renewing the Art of Relational Disciplemaking (Richmond, VA: Living Dialog Ministries, 2023) and Illumined by Wisdom and Love: Essays on a Sophio-Agapic Constructive Postmodern Political Philosophy (College Station, TX: Virtual Bookworm, 2025).

When I was a young Christian, I was fortunate to have a very good friend who was in the construction business. In fact, his company was one of the finest construction firms in Houston. We used to go to lunch about once a month. He would describe to me some of the projects he was working on. One of the things I came to understand is how important the foundation and the structure of a building, which hardly anyone sees, are to its success. If a building lacks a good foundation and its structural steel is insufficient or poorly designed, builders say it lacks integrity. That is, when pressure is put upon the building, it might fail.

And came from a family well known in Houston, active in a local church, and, for generations, had provided leadership in the construction business. Their buildings were known to be well-built and likely to last. The family and their buildings had integrity.

Meaning of Integrity

The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective “integer,” meaning whole or complete. It is defined as ‘an undivided or unbroken completeness’, or ‘a state of being full or whole. In construction, it conveys being well-built. In mathematics, integers are whole numbers. In banking, it concerns the ongoing value of collateral held for a loan. In professions, it involves following the ethical guidelines of the profession in question. For example, in medicine, a doctor with integrity does not harm the patient. In ethics, it has to do with having a kind of virtue that can withstand pressures to compromise one’s values.

In our continuing study of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, this week, the discipline was “Climbing the Ladder of Integrity. In other words, integrity is a habit that we develop, and we develop it by gradually increasing our capacity to live in accordance with our underlying values and, for Christians, the values of Christ.

Barriers to Integrity

Everyday life presents barriers or threats to living with integrity. We all face pressure to compromise, and from time to time, we do compromise our core values. Sometimes, we have good and valid reasons for doing so; other times, we do not. The main obstacle to maintaining integrity is our lack of awareness about what our true values are. In daily life, we can lose sight of who we are, what we aim to achieve, and our fundamental goals. Climbing the ladder of integrity helps us remember our true selves and what we truly value.

The False Self. One key concept for developing our integrity is understanding the difference between our true self and our false self. Our true self is who we really are, embracing our true values. Our false self is a projected identity that tries to present an external but false version of ourselves to the world. For example, I spent many years as a lawyer. In law, it helps to be strong and tough in negotiations. But fundamentally, that’s not who I am. I projected that persona for a long time until I believed I was someone I was not. It didn’t work out for me.

Whenever we develop a false self that we project onto the world, either to protect ourselves or to accomplish some goal, we begin to hide from the world and from ourselves who we really are.

The Accommodating Self. The second way we fail to develop integrity is by repeatedly adapting ourselves to others’ unjustified expectations. In its simplest form, people around us may pressure us to adopt immoral or unfair strategies and behaviors to succeed. If we accommodate these pressures, not only do we fail to become our true selves, but we also build a life that will not last.

The Self-Centered Self. No parable is more relevant to the issue of integrity than the parable of the man who built many barns. Jesus put it like this:

Jesus told the crowd this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.  He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.  And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night, your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16-21).

The man in the parable has become so focused on himself, his own desire to be wealthy and cured, that he has closed his eyes to a fundamental principle of the wise life: “teach us to number our days so that we may become wise.” The rich man did not remember his days properly, and he spent his time living a false life without considering eternity. Whenever we become self-centered and focused on our own will, desires, objectives, and plans, we gradually lose sight of what true integrity means.

Differentiation and Integrity

Until and unless we fully understand who we are, it’s hard to have integrity. A person who is not well differentiated finds it challenging to hold onto their integrity under stress. For example, if someone hasn’t properly resolved past issues, especially with their family of origin, they are more vulnerable to threats to their integrity related to family matters. This means it’s essential to do the work we’ve discussed, such as exploring the iceberg. Creating a genogram and reflecting on significant past issues help one to differentiate properly.

Scazzero puts it this way:

Differentiation refers to a person’s capacity to define his or her own life’s goals and values apart from the pressures around them. A differentiated person has the ability to think clearly and carefully, to set priorities and make decisions. Differentiation means you know how to hold onto who you are and who you are not regardless of your circumstances. Your level of differentiation is determined by how well you are able to affirm your values and goals apart from the pressures around you (separateness), while remaining close to people important to you (togetherness). Your convictions, goals, and values don’t change even under pressure. You can make healthy choices, before God, without being controlled by the approval or disapproval of others.[1]

A key part of understanding Emotionally Healthy Discipleship is the nature of true differentiation. True differentiation doesn’t mean completely rejecting or rebelling against our past or our family of origin. Instead, a genuinely differentiated person has integrated their past and family history in a way that allows them to become their True Self. Naturally, the more severe the dysfunction in the family of origin, the harder it is to integrate, and the more of the past must be rejected. This makes sense.

Ladders of Integrity

History. In Emotionally Healthy Relationships, there is an entire week focused on “Climbing the Ladder of Integrity.” [2] In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Scazzero advances an adaptation of the Benedictine Ladder of Spiritual Growth, from which the Ladder of Integrity is taken. [3] The original goes something like this:

1. Keep the fear of the Lord before your eyes
2. Abandon self-will, seeking only the Will of God
3. Submit to the proper authorities in life
4. Endure everything, especially contradiction, without seeking escape
5. Confess your thoughts, especially your sinful ones
6. Be willing to accept menial work
7. Regard yourself as no better and perhaps worse than others
8. Act according to the rule of life you have adopted
9. Restrain your speech and embrace silence
10. Refrain from “ready laughter”
11. Speak gently, seriously, modestly, and reasonably
12. Demonstrate humility not only in heart but in your entire demeanor (nothing ostentatious).[4]

Scazzero has adapted this idea to modern life and the needs of independent Protestant churches in America. When used correctly, the Ladder of Integrity provides a practical way to develop the integrity of character that St. Benedict teaches by guiding you through a series of questions that help identify what truly matters to you, even when there may be interpersonal implications involved.

Worksheet. The worksheet asks the inquirer to answer statements grouped into three main categories based on the image’s labels:

What is going on inside me (1-6): This section focuses on self-awareness, feelings, needs, personal responsibility (“my part”), and physical reactions.

• Right now, the issue on my mind is:
• I’m anxious in talking about this because: ….
• My part in this is: …
• My need in this issue is: …t
• My feelings about this are: …
• What my reaction tells me about me is: …

What I value (7-10): This section addresses core values, what is willing/not willing to do, potential improvements to the situation, and important information to share with others.

• This issue is important to me because I value… and I violate that value when…:
• I am willing/not willing to: …
• One thing I could do to improve the situation is: …suggest setting a firm ground rule for meeting start times and perhaps implement a quick check-in at the beginning to see if everyone can commit to it.
• The most important thing I want you to know is: …

What I hope (11-12): This final section looks to the future, addressing hopes and how honest communication might benefit the relationship.

• I think my honest sharing will benefit our relationship by: …
• I hope and look forward to: …

In recent weeks, I have begun using this ladder to analyze my reactions to people, situations, and decisions. One of the remarkable results is the ability to look more deeply into one’s own motives and hidden agendas regarding decisions. If I had used this method when I was an active leader, some of the decisions I made might have been wiser,  clearer, and more lovingly presented. As Pete Scazzero puts it:

“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). This captures the “Ladder of Integrity.” If we are willing to be rigorously honest with ourselves and take time to sit with our hearts—layer by layer—we will be closer to meeting our true selves and God. [5]

It goes without saying that when we understand our true selves and embrace them in the day-to-day problems of life, we build the integrity we all desire in our deepest hearts.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey to Deeply Change Your Relationships (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 178-9.

[2] Peter & Geri Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships: Discipleship that Deeply Changes your Relationships with Each Other Expanded Ed., (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan. Harper Collins Resources, 2023), 120.

[3] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 134.

[4] Benedict, Saint, Abbot of Monte Cassino, The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 7.

[5] Pete Scazzero on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/petescazzero/posts/the-purposes-of-a-persons-heart-are-deep-waters-but-one-who-has-insight-draws-th/861107545817856/ (March 8, 2024) downloaded November 9, 2025

 

 

Incarnational listening is the ability to focus fully on a speaker, understand what they’re saying, respond appropriately, reflect on the conversation, and remember the information for later. This includes paying attention to the speaker’s body language and tone, as well as the content of their words, keeping both the listener and speaker actively involved in the conversation. In other words, Incarnational listening is an activity of the entire person, mind, body, psyche, and spirit.

Here is how Pete Scazzero puts it:

To listen incarnationally is to enter into another person’s world, at a heart level, with the empathy of Christ, attending to their nonverbal cues as well as their words. This is how we demonstrate our love for them. We genuinely listen to what they say and feel…. And, in doing so, by God’s grace, they experience the presence of Christ through us.[1]

Incarnational listening is essential for disciples of Christ because it helps us build strong relationships with others, foster trust and rapport, resolve conflicts, ensure understanding, and create a Christlike environment in our churches and small groups. When people practice active listening, they are better able to understand the needs and concerns of others, leading to more effective communication and resulting action.

The Basic Skill of Incarnational Listening

The basic elements of Incarnational Listening are these:

• Paying total attention as a unified person to what the person is saying and to nonverbal cues, such as body language.

• Giving natural, empathetic visual proof that you are listening, including nodding and eye contact.
• Asking clarifying questions when you genuinely do not understand what is being said.
• Eliminating distractions and interruptions, including looking at your computer, cell phone, or email notifications, and the like, and discouraging people from interrupting.
• Demonstrating a focused presence, allowing the speaker to feel heard and validated.
• Confirming that you understand what the speaker has said, by repeating back to them your understanding of what is being said.
• Building a harmonious relationship with the other person, remaining in tune with what they are saying, what they are feeling, and how they are reacting.

Importance of Incarnational Listening

Many people find it hard to understand why practicing Incarnational listening is so vital in the life of a church, small group, or even in businesses, non-profit organizations, or government. A good way to overcome these feelings is to recognize that when we listen to others, we are taking a meaningful step toward showing our love and respect. When we listen in a nonjudgmental, caring, and respectful way, people feel valued. They also see that we truly understand or want to understand where they are coming from. Plus, there are other benefits to learning how to practice incarnational listening.

• Incarnational listening shows that we value the information others share with us. One vital aspect of building a relationship is letting people know that we appreciate their unique personality, struggles, strengths, and weaknesses. Incarnational listening demonstrates that we are in tune with their personal feelings and struggles.
• Incarnational listening promotes deep understanding among people in various relationships, including churches, families, small groups, and workplaces. Being an attentive listener encourages others to share openly and thoroughly, helping you better grasp important issues and allowing you to make wise decisions and take appropriate action.
• Incarnational listening promotes understanding among people, which, in turn, creates a healthy atmosphere within any group. Being a strong, attentive listener encourages people to share information, helping you better understand relevant issues and enabling wise, loving actions.
• Incarnational listening promotes psychological safety. Being a loving and attentive listener —reflecting back what you have heard, asking questions, seeking clarification, and encouraging others to share their perspectives — strengthens relationships, helping people feel comfortable and committed to the relationship.
• Incarnational listening helps develop those around you to become more effective, appreciated, and understood. It fosters the kind of profound personal change that disciple-makers seek—not just mental growth, but also emotional, physical, and spiritual change, as they aim to influence people emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
• Incarnational listening helps cultivate a listening-focused environment that is open to change and new ideas.  You and everyone around you become more emotionally mature and more willing to accept diverse possibilities, especially during conflict. Practicing Incarnational listening develops a culture of wisdom, love, and respect.

Steps toward Emotionally Healthy Listening

All human beings struggle to listen. We are often “in our own heads,” thinking about what we will say or do next. We think about our schedules and the many things we need to accomplish. Everyone struggles with short attention spans and the tendency to view and listen to the world around us through our own perspective. As a counselor, I have occasionally returned to my office after a hard workout and lunch, only to find myself fearful that I would not listen to the person across from me, but might actually fall asleep!

The remedy for all this is to learn a few simple lessons.

First, pay attention to the person you are speaking to. One goal of active and effective listening is to allow the speaker to think and speak without interruption or finishing their sentences. Learn to delay responding. Don’t cut the other person off, finish their sentences, or start formulating your answer while the others are speaking. Be aware of and control your body language while active listening. Stay in the moment, make eye contact, and try to enter the speaker’s thought world.

Second, try not to judge the other person or offer solutions to their problem while they are speaking. If you disagree with what is being said, find something true or helpful in what they are saying. This is sometimes called “suspending judgment.”  Most people do not come to another person when they feel that the other person is automatically going to criticize or reject what they are saying.

Third, Incarnational listeners repeat, reflect, and validate as much as possible what the other person is saying. Much of the time, we do not understand what another person is saying because we would not have said it or in in the same way. By repeating what another person is saying and paraphrasing their words, we allow them to correct our understanding, which may completely change what we think they said!

Fourth, clarify your understanding when you experience doubt. When I was in seminary, we were required to learn Incarnational listening (under the name of “active listening.” It was invaluable. In the course, we were discouraged from asking questions because the instructor wanted us to learn to listen intently to others. However, in everyday life, we sometimes need to ask questions to clarify our understanding. Learning to ask carefully thought-out, open-ended, clarifying, and probing questions is an essential listening skill. Additionally, they help the speaker reflect on whether what they have said is accurate.

Fifth, summarize for the speaker what you have heard and what they would like you to do in response. This allows the other person to correct any misunderstandings and prevents inappropriate actions.  Telling the other person what you have heard and asking what you can do helps both parties understand the desired practical outcomes of the conversation.

Finally, in a leadership situation, it is often necessary to share your reactions. It is important to remember that the end of a conversation is not necessarily—and usually not—the best time to share a response. It is always appropriate —and sometimes important —to say to another person, “I need time to process what you have said.” Often, a conversation is about what another believes you, an organization, or even God expects of them. Often, the best course is to take on the role of a coach, suggesting alternatives, providing new information, and drawing on your experience and that of others. It is essential not to give the impression that you have listened only to provide advice and direction. People want to be heard, and only if they feel truly heard will they accept new ideas or direction.

Connecting with the other as a Thou

To deeply listen to another human being, it is necessary to avoid seeing the other person as an object —an employee, a colleague, a parishioner, a child, a parent, etc. We must see the person as a person, as a “Thou.” When we do this, we enter the world of the other person in a deep and abiding way. In 1 Corinthians 6:6, Paul makes what might be seen as a harsh comment: “Don’t you know that he who is joined to an immoral person becomes one with that person? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”

Embedded in this comment is a truism we should all remember: We become, in some way, connected to those with whom we have intimate relationships, for good or for bad. This is true beyond the subject of sex. We can be joined mentally, emotionally, or spiritually with another person. Human beings become joined in a special way to those with whom they have any kind of intimate relationship. This is true in every area of life. Once we develop a relationship with another person, we are never the same. Nor is the other person. That is why we must be careful to have self-giving, loving relationships with those we meet.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Eternal Thou

One reason to delay before offering advice and instruction immediately is that a key listening skill for Christians is to hear God’s voice in the situation. This applies in religious and secular settings. It is important to remember that Christ is the very LOGOS, or Word of God, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made that has been made (John 1:1-14).

This means, among other things, that the Word is the ultimate source of all real wisdom, both secular and sacred. The methods of science, technology, and business differ from religious methods, but the truth sought is the truth that God has embedded in the universe, human lives, and institutions. Christians, therefore, should respect all searches for truth, and non-Christians should respect the Christian search.  In the end, we are all on the same team.

When responding to others, we aim to foster understanding, care, and empathy. Our goal is to find a path that creates more love, wisdom, harmony, and progress for everyone involved, regardless of their spiritual, emotional, or physical state. This is true in our families, friendships, neighborhoods, social organizations, businesses, and governments.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day by Day: A 40-Day Jouneey to Deeply Change Your Relationships (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 132.