Hi, my name is Pete Zazzaro. I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy Leader

podcast. Our title today is why our church crisis demands a new kind of training. Why our church

crisis demands a new kind of training. Now, the church crisis in particular that I'm referring to is that of

shallow discipleship, which inevitably leads to a shallow or superficial leadership formation as well.

Now, this has become particularly apparent and clear to many of us today due to the pressure

and the tidal wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,

which has altered churches around the world significantly.

The painful polarization that's divided the church around politics, race, gender, sexuality, marriage.

And then, of course, the continual fall of prominent and not so prominent Christian leaders.

That's been happening around us.

And I do believe in the next five, 10, 20 years, we can expect the pressure on the church to continue to reveal cracks in our armor

and thus only increase the need for what I'm talking about today.

This is an extremely important topic of why our church crisis needs a new kind of training.

Now, what's interesting is this is not just here in North America.

I was talking to a fellow leader, friend of mine in Africa just a couple of days ago.

And he was remarking how even with 647 million Christians in the sub-Saharan African continent, their greatest challenge is to shed

or get free from the Western values of church that have kept the African church shallow.

Things like the wrong definition of success and greatness and popularity, the desire for

comfort and health and wealth and prosperity in the church, all of what you refer to as a product

of colonization and westernization. It's very interesting. It's a global problem, not just one here

in North America. So so much of what we're doing in our communities around discipleship and

formation is just not working anymore to deeply change people. And we've got way too many people

...