Do you want to grow deeper in your discipleship? Often we are simply too busy, too preoccupied or frantic to notice Jesus working in our lives or to allow him in to change us deeply. The consequence is a shallow discipleship. Emotionally Healthy Spiritualty offers a way of thinking about discipleship that seeks to equip the church in a deep, beneath the surface spirituality that deeply transforms people who then transform the world! There are two underlying themes: (i) Emotional health (the ability to be self-aware and love well) and (ii) Contemplative spirituality (stopping and pausing to intentionally cultivate our relationship with Jesus). When these 2 are brought together release great power to transform our spiritual lives. There are three major symptoms of the Emotionally unhealthy person: (i) they say ‘no’ to a reflective life and is not self-aware; they say ‘no’ to a personal relationship with God and they say ‘No’ to being broken by setbacks and difficulties.

We cannot grow in spiritual maturity if we remain emotionally immature and unhealthy. Jesus invites us to slow down and make time to be with him (like Mary)  so that our doing for Jesus flows from our being with Jesus. We do this through practising spiritual disciplines such as silence and Sabbath keeping. Many of us live off the spiritualty of others and have not learnt to feed ourselves daily through regularly stopping to be with Jesus either in prayer or scripture. He also invites us to ‘Go back in order to go forward’ – acknowledging the unhelpful and unhealthy patterns from the past and allowing God to bring healing and transformation.