Hi, my name is Pete Gazzaro.

I want to welcome you today to the emotionally healthy leader podcast.

Our topic today, our theme is facing the unseen, why discipleship must go beneath the surface.

That is, facing the unseen, why discipleship must go beneath the surface. This friends is a

life and death matter because my first 17 years as a follower of Jesus, we did not get beneath the

surface. I had no idea how to get beneath the surface. We often use the image of an iceberg.

One tenth of an iceberg is above the surface. Nine tenth is below the surface.

My discipleship was primarily external, what I was doing for Jesus and learning and growing in, at least intellectually.

We talked a lot about getting beneath the surface, but really had no idea how to get there in my own life, nor

that I know how to bring other people there. I was emotionally stuck. I wasn't honest with myself

or Jerry, didn't know how. And it were just generational patterns that I was living out,

again, from my family of origin, and I just couldn't see it. And it was worked out in my personal life,

in my marriage, in my parenting, in my leading of our church. I had a lot of conflicts internally

that I did not have any idea how to sort out. But then at the same time, I saw everybody else was

stuck. And again, I was teaching everybody what I knew, which was more Bible study, more fellowship,

more spiritual warfare, more gifts to the Holy Spirit, more power of God, you name it. But it was

primarily outside external stuff, learning and bringing it in to change people's lives. And we

ended up recycling a lot of the same old problems. And here we were trying to be a church

that was bridging racial, cultural, economic, and gender barriers in New York City. And the kind of

change needed in that kind of a community, in that kind of environment, needed to be serious and deep.

And it was clear after the first six or seven years,

we were not getting at people's deeper issues. And of course, mine were first. And so something was deeply wrong. Our discipleship was shallow. And I saw it. I saw dynamic, gifted people speaking in

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