Welcome to the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast. My name is Pete Gazzaro, and our topic today is

growing a flourishing ministry without losing your soul. Growing a flourishing ministry without losing

your soul. It's an issue or question I've been asked many

times over the years. And in many ways, it hits the core of what I believe is our contribution to

the global church in emotionally healthy discipleship. Now, God so loves the world that he gave his only

son and he thus has raised up shepherds men and women to love the

church and to serve her in leadership laying down our lives for the church for the sake of the

sheep and for the sake of Jesus's mission in the world and so his question to all of us is do you love

me John 21 feed my sheep do you love me? John 21, feed my sheep. Do you love me?

Feed my sheep. And so this is the context of today's podcast that I trust you, whether you're a

pastor, a leader in a church, a board member, maybe you're a marketplace leader, maybe you're a

parish church leader, somewhere around the world, but you're serving Jesus. And you recognize I can be growing a work or building something, but my own soul can be

shrinking. And so the question is, how do I lead in such a way or build or grow a flourishing

ministry, even to think of your own families in a way that I'm doing it out of a cup

that overflows or I'm not on the inside shrinking, dying, diminishing. And so out of our experience,

you know, we want to be leading out of the depths of our beings. We lead out of who we are.

And so we like to say three general statements in E.H. Discipleship, the state you are in

is the state you give to others. We cannot give what we do not possess. We can only give what we do

possess. And who we are is way more important than what we do. And thus, it's out of our love in God

ourselves, our inner life that we give out of a full cup to serve other people

in Jesus. So I spent the early years of my leadership, actually the first 17, I was growing

a flourishing ministry, at least on the outside. But inside, I was chaotic. I was lacking

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