Issue 37 Encountering JesusBlog | Mentoring matters: are you emotionally healthy?
Mentoring matters: are you emotionally healthy?
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.12.23
Earlier this year, the latest report1 from the Living Ministry Research Project confirmed, through solid research, what many of us suspected was true from our personal experience: that the wellbeing of Christian leaders in the UK is in a poor state and not improving. Research among clergy in the United States2 and in Australia3 has returned similar conclusions. Christian leadership has never been easy but if you’re feeling like it’s especially hard right now, you’re not imagining things.
As a mentor to Christian by Rick Lewis leaders, I have found one of the most critical elements of well-being currently under pressure is emotional health. If you’re emotionally healthy, you are at least in a position to grapple with the stresses of our time. Once this starts to slip, it gets harder and harder to keep one’s head above water. To better understand this topic, I recommend Peter Scazzero’s books4 in which he effectively applies principles of emotional health to various aspects of ministry. However, understanding the topic is one thing; what about understanding yourself? I’d like to offer you a tool to help you do a basic self-assessment of your emotional health.
Why should we consider our emotions? We are right to pay close attention to our thinking, as most of us do as we ‘take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Yet our emotions are equally crucial in shaping how we live. Both aspects of our inner life deserve attention and it’s important to assess each aspect appropriately. When we deal with our thinking at the level of ideas, we can categorise those ideas as true or false, good or bad. Some people make the mistake of assessing their feelings in the same way. But my strong conviction is that emotions, in and of themselves, are not susceptible to moral evaluation; they simply are what they are, neither wrong nor right. But that doesn’t mean emotions are unimportant or inconsequential.
