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<\/a>In 1992, shortly before graduating from seminary, I did an independent study on mystical theology. As part of that study, I read the Rule of Saint Augustine for the first time. For my semester project, I constructed a rule of life incorporating certain aspects of the Augustinian rule.[1]<\/a> Less than five years later, I had a spiritual director who was a Benedictine monk in an Anglican order. At that time, I became interested in the Benedictine rule as it has been applied from time to time. When I became interested in Centering Prayer, I joined a group at a local Episcopal Church. Interestingly, this church had a lawyer as a prominent member who had drafted a highly modified, almost non-binding Benedictine rule that he used for his life and suggested for others. During this time, on and off, I tried to follow a rule of life, generally some modification of the rule I worked on in seminary.<\/p>\nI would like to report success in my endeavors, but the truth is that the story of my rule of life is a story of half-hearted attempts followed by periodic failure. In the process, however, I learned a great deal and formed three opinions:<\/p>\n
- \n
- It is easy to draft a personal rule of life.<\/li>\n
- It is hard to follow it.<\/li>\n
- In monastic and other orders, it can be done because regular accountability makes it possible.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The conclusion of my struggles is simple: If you want to have a workable rule of life to keep you and your ministry centered in Christ, don\u2019t try to do it alone<\/u>. It is simply too hard in our culture to follow a rule of life consistently without some degree of accountability. Personal rules unconnected to a group of people who are attempting to follow it are too likely to fail to produce the kind of deep spiritual change most pastors need and want.<\/p>\n
Embracing a Rule of Life Strong Enough to Hold Your Calling<\/strong><\/p>\n
When I began learning about and teaching Emotionally Healthy Discipleship, I eventually merged some of Pete Scazzero\u2019s ideas with my own to create a rule of life that integrates his general framework into my Augustinian forma.[2]<\/a>I\u2019ve shared it from time to time with a small group of people and at least once in this series of blog posts. Still, I struggle to make it meaningful. What is needed is a community committed to the rule. Therefore, it is not surprising that Pete has encouraged pastors to adopt a rule of life in Emotionally Healthy Success and has attempted to create a public rule of life that churches and leaders can use to foster an emotionally healthy culture in their churches.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Here is what Pete says in Emotionally Healthy Success<\/em>:<\/p>\nThe truth is, Geri and I are still learning too. After more than three decades, we\u2019ve come to see that every pastor and ministry leader needs both a clear Rule of Life rooted in emotional health and a community of those also committed to living it out together. Conferences and intensive cohorts are valuable, but they can\u2019t provide the kind of ongoing formation and mutual support we all need to sustain deep transformation.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n
I like the way he puts it: Christian leaders need a rule of life strong enough to support our spiritual life as we seek to help form the spiritual life of others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
The Crisis of American Spirituality<\/strong><\/p>\n
I\u2019ve told people many times that I feel lucky to have entered the ministry after a professional career and after many years as a Christian leader, serving as an elder, Deacon, Sunday School teacher, and endless committee member in a very good church. I was accustomed to maintaining my Christian faith under stress. In my first ministry, I served a small church that desperately needed to grow spiritually and numerically. Although our seminary did not offer classes in spiritual formation, I did an independent study on Reformed spirituality and the ancient Catholic practices. That study left me better prepared than most students for the pressures of ministry. Then, with another local pastor, I had a monastic Spiritual Friend, with whom I could share and who gently encouraged me to maintain a healthy spiritual life. For a time, two of my congregations had a trained counselor and spiritual director on staff. It helped a great deal.<\/p>\n
The truth is, as I’ve mentioned before, our seminaries often don’t do enough to nurture spiritual growth. I believe most seminaries do a decent job of encouraging pastors to study the Bible beyond lesson planning, to pray, and to participate in other spiritual practices. The key word here is encouragement. There is a noticeable difference between encouraging people and simply training them. Unfortunately, many professors have little hands-on experience in ministry.<\/p>\n
From my own experience, the most well-known professor at my seminary had only a three-year pastorate before pursuing a doctorate. Thereafter, he worked in academia. He ever again served a local church. In my view, three years isn’t quite enough time to fully develop as a pastor. For example, in a small church, those three years often just cover the honeymoon phase, without encountering and overcoming the real pressures that follow. In addition, what is most important is that the pastor face and successfully survive those pressures. Finally, the challenges pastors face do not always fit neatly into a three-year timeline. My professor was a wonderful person and a brilliant scholar, but I recognize that his understanding of pastoral ministry was somewhat limited.<\/p>\n
It is fair to compare modern pastor training with how Timothy, for example, was trained by Paul. They were partners in ministry for an extended time. They lived together, worked together, and traveled together. Timothy saw Paul handle difficult situations. Paul sent Timothy on short-term trips to solve problems in churches he had planted. He then had an opportunity to talk about what had happened during the visit. In other words, Timothy\u2019s spirituality was not formed in a classroom but right onsite, next to an established and experienced evangelist.<\/p>\n
In a similar way, when a novice joins a monastery, they don\u2019t take a class on spirituality. They begin living the spiritual life together with older, more experienced monks. There might be some amount of teaching, but there\u2019s a large amount of imitation, day-to-day correction, and modeling. We can\u2019t really escape the problems with pastoral formation in America until we get ourselves accustomed to the notion that it\u2019s primarily the job of existing pastors to train future pastors, whatever help is received from seminaries, colleges, graduate schools, or a host of other institutions.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>ete Scazzero puts the problem this way:<\/p>\nWe\u2019ve minimized the spiritual formation of leaders by rushing them into ministry before their inner life has been anchored in God, essentially bypassing the slow, hidden work required to sustain a lifetime of rooted, fruitful service. We prioritize theological information over spiritual formation when we need to do both. We offer conferences that inspire and cast vision but lack the ongoing relational structures and depth necessary for lasting fruit. We assume that calling plus gifting plus opportunity equals great leadership for God.<\/strong>[5]<\/a><\/p>\n
Adapting Monastic Rhythms for Contemporary Ministry<\/strong><\/p>\n
In Emotionally Healthy Success,<\/em> Scazzero does a wonderful job of showing from Church history how the monastic movement arose to meet a need for greater and deeper Christian spirituality among leaders. He also does a good job of dealing with the fact that most church leaders are not monks. We have spouses, children, extended family, a network of friendships, and, of course, a local congregation of which we are a part. We don\u2019t have the same ability to have the kind of structured life that a monastery provides. Furthermore, most of us don\u2019t even desire to have that kind of structure. We need something else. So did Pete and Geri Scazzero.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n
As the structure of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship emerged, the Scazzero\u2019s realized they needed a way to incorporate some of the ancient church\u2019s wisdom into a new approach to encouraging spiritual growth and emotional maturity in the conditions of the 21st<\/sup> Century. The result has been the slow development of a new way of looking at a rule of life for emotional and spiritual health today.[7]<\/a> This rule of life centers around our need for prayer, rest, relationships, and meaningful work. Scazzero helpfully includes a practical chart that helps readers work out for themselves what that means for their particular life.<\/p>\n
Here is how Pete describes the results over time:<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t pretend that following any of these four rhythms is easy, much less quick or popular. In fact, living by this Rule of Life will challenge everything our culture believes about leadership and success. It will slow you down so you can listen deeply. It will make you appear less productive while making you more fruitful. It will lead you to surrender outcomes and find a deep, holy freedom in doing only what God asks. But here\u2019s what I\u2019ve discovered after decades of living this way: It works. Not according to the metrics of a performance-driven model, but in ways that bear fruit that lasts. Those who embrace this Rule of Life don\u2019t just survive\u2014they flourish.<\/strong>[8]<\/a><\/p>\n
Becoming Part of a Group<\/strong><\/p>\n
Remember when I mentioned my doubts about whether I and most people I know can stick to a rule of life without outside help? I think Pete and Geri Scazzero feel the same way. That’s why they\u2019re offering churches and pastors a chance to be part of something bigger. They\u2019ve started the \u201cOrder of Emotionally Healthy Leaders,\u201d a movement dedicated to living by a rule of life that fosters emotional and spiritual growth and to sharing that vision within the churches they serve. This movement provides the kind of order and discipline I think is necessary for pastors to maintain spiritual maturity. It\u2019s probably not the only way, but it\u2019s one way. It is worth checking out.<\/p>\n
I suggest that every religious leader who reads this blog consider, once again, reading, exploring, and getting the kind of training that will enable them to bring this movement into their own local congregation. I wish I had discovered this many years earlier. I\u2019m retired now, but I also wish that I had been part of this kind of movement to give me better support in my often-on attempts to live by a rule of life that would allow me to be an authentically balanced Christian leader in our home and in the churches I served. I might have avoided many mistakes and failures.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> In a prior blog, I gave a brief outline of that Rule of Life, a version of which I still follow. For a rendition of that rule, see \u201cAdopting a Rule of Life for Healthy Spirituality\u201d July 18, 2023, July 18, 2023<\/a>\u00a0ChrisScruggs<\/a> at www.gchristopherscruggs.com<\/a>. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n
[2] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Church<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003, 2010). Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021)<\/em>. For those who wish to read all of his books, see Emotionally Healthy Spirituality<\/em>, updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), and The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World<\/em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). All the blogs in the series are worth reading, but if<\/em> you have no prior experience with the materials, start with Emotionally Healthy Success, then read Emotionally Healthy Discipleship<\/em>.<\/p>\n
[3]<\/a> Pete Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Success: Measuring What Matters Most to Jesus<\/em>\u00a0 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2026. I was given the opportunity to review an advance copy of the book, which I recommend to interested readers. Pete has advised me that Emotionally Healthy Success can be preordered<\/em>. If you\u00a0pre-order today, you can start reading chapter 1 immediately<\/a>. Hopefully this offer is still available.<\/p>\n
[4]<\/a> Id,<\/u> 134.<\/p>\n
[5]<\/a> Id,<\/u> 118.<\/p>\n
[6]<\/a> I\u2019ve been aware that I\u2019m not giving Geri Scazzero full credit for her role in Emotionally Healthy Discipleship<\/strong>. Geri\u2019s encouragement and insistence led Pete to begin his journey toward emotional maturity in ministry. She has also been active in the emotionally healthy ministry throughout its existence. In addition, she wrote The Emotionally Healthy Woman<\/em>, which is a course in its own right. See The Emotionally Healthy Woman: Eight Things You Have to Quit to Change Your Life <\/em>(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005). She was an active leader in the various teaching sessions Kathy and I attended during the leadership course.<\/p>\n
[7]<\/a> Emotionally Healthy Success<\/em>, 125.<\/p>\n
[8]<\/a> Id,<\/u> 133- 134. Once again, I have summarized many pages that readers need to digest on their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who wants to follow Christ needs to create a positive plan and build meaningful practices into their daily routine to achieve their goal. Simply having a little self-awareness, setting a goal to be more like Christ, and attending church once a week or giving some money during the offering isn’t enough. Growing in faith … Continue reading Emotionally Healthy Success No. 5: Structuring a Life for Christ-like Success<\/span>