Welcome everyone to the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast.

I'm Pete Scazzaro, and this is Rich Velotus, the lead pastor at New Life Fellowship.

I'm Pete Scazzaro, the former lead pastor at New Life Fellowship, and now on staff as a teaching pastor and pastor at large.

So we are here, and our theme today is the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Course and how it fits into the larger

formation, discipleship in a local church. So I'm actually going to be interviewing

Rich today in this podcast. So Rich, why don't you share with them and share with us,

how does, for where you sit, the EHS course fit into

the larger strategy of what you're building here at New Life?

Yeah, EHS is really about deepening our lives in Christ and the formation of our entire

lives. And what I've noticed in classical approaches

to spiritual formation and discipleship,

that we're focusing on your scripture,

reading scripture, prayer, what have you.

But I think EHS gives the two, I think, overlooked elements

of discipleship that many people are not paying attention to, the emotional

health component and the contemplative spirituality component. And it's very easy to be on mission

for God and be missing those two critical elements that EHS brings to the surface. And so for

our strategy at New Life, which has been for many years now, it's been focusing on those areas

of emotion health and contemplative spirituality. Or as I say it, and I've been new life, which has been for many years now, it's been focusing on those areas of emotional

health and contemplative spirituality.

Or as I say it, and I've been saying it differently in this way, is focusing, helping us focus

on our inner space and our outer pace.

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