"SNORKELING OR SCUBA SPIRITUALITY: WHICH DESCRIBES YOU?"

This year’s Pacific Southwest Conference “Celebration” was as informative and exciting as ever! Thank you for letting me represent you as a delegate. It is always a joy to meet with other Covenanters in our conference, to hear about the amazing things that are happening throughout the PSWC and the wider Covenant, to be challenged by inspirational speakers, and to worship with the broad multicultural mix of Covenant people in our conference.

The meetings began with a workshop for Covenant clergy entitled “Emotionally Healthy Leadership,” presented by Pete Scazzero, pastor of a large multiracial church in Queens, New York. The essence of Pete’s message is that emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable – and unfortunately, most people are not healthy emotionally! Which has serious implications for how pastors and leaders lead, how congregations behave, for church ministry priorities – every aspect of congregational life. All of us are like icebergs, presenting just a small part of who we are to the world around us.

The greater part of ourselves is hidden below the surface, unconscious and unknown even to ourselves, resulting in unhealthy and negative consequences in every aspect of our lives. The cost of not addressing the “iceberg” aspects of people is enormous. Until these buried parts of ourselves become conscious and healed, our spirituality will also be affected negatively, manifesting in a variety of immature ways (legalism, judgmental attitudes, anger, a critical and un-teachable spirit, stunted spirituality, and so forth).

But it’s Pete’s message on Thursday night that I want to highlight for you, because it offers an important, timely, and very serious challenge for us at Hilmar Covenant as we call a new pastor and intentionally proceed into our “preferred future” as a church.

Pete began by describing an experience he had while in Hawaii, snorkeling in the ocean and being awed by the beauty he saw in the water below him: the variety and colors of fish, the coral and rock formations, the play of sunlight in the water and on the ocean floor. He wanted to go deeper; to “get up close and personal” with all that he was seeing from the surface as he snorkeled.

However, to descend to those depths requires scuba diving! A much more demanding activity than snorkeling, needing lots of training, equipment, finances, practice, and commitment. The only way to be fully immersed and engaged in the rich diversity and beauty of the ocean depths is to commit to what it takes to “go deep” – to scuba dive.

Pete’s used his snorkeling experience as an analogy for the spiritual lives of Christians in America today. He is convinced that many of the problems facing the American Church today are the result of most American Christians settling for “snorkeling spirituality” – just skimming across the surface of faith – rather than pursuing everything that is required for a deep, transformative, life-changing and world-changing spirituality: “scuba spirituality!” The evidence is indisputable:

•the Church is almost indistinguishable from the world
•people are not experiencing deep transformation (they accept Jesus, but are not changed deeply)
•there is a disconnect between what people say they believe and how they act and live out their lives
•most people are living off of other people’s spirituality (settling for a pastor’s sermon, a small group leader’s insights, the latest book or charismatic leader)
•most people are not deeply into Scripture and prayer
•the Church is not transforming society and culture
•there is a degree of violence in congregations today that damages a leader’s soul and family
•seminaries are not succeeding in preparing leaders for the realities and challenges of ministry in the world of today
•the level of distraction, “scattered-ness,” and information overload is rapidly increasing with mobile devices, social networking, etc. with profound effects on people’s abilities to go deeper spiritually

Pete also offered a number of reasons why the Church is in this unhealthy place:

•congregations tend to live the gospel intellectually, but emotionally live out their families’ habits, patterns, and unconscious “iceberg” realities
•there is over-shepherding of people by leaders (which facilitates “snorkeling spirituality”)
•self-care is seen as selfish – we need to “work for Jesus!” (pastors available 24/7)
•there is a tendency to “preach grace,” but many actually “live law”
•identity is found more in doing and producing, not in just “being”
•people are unchanged because there is not strong, deep discipleship occurring in churches
•churches are focused more on activity, busy-ness, and outer marks of “success” (size, numbers, programs, style, etc.) than about developing spiritual maturity in people
•churches rely on the corporate model and cause-driven ministry rather than helping people simply love Jesus (that life is first about passionately loving, serving, and seeking Jesus)

So what are some remedies and ways to help people become “spiritual scuba divers?”

•remind congregations that the image of the church in the New Testament is one of family – and our first loyalty as believers is to the family of Jesus (our “biological blood” is not as important as the “blood of Jesus” that binds us together)
•”re-parent” our people to the family of Jesus
•help people open up and allow Jesus to transform their “icebergs” (all of the stuff below the surface of their lives)
•bring emotional health into our churches so spiritual maturity can develop (we can’t do transformation at church without healthy marriages, singleness, and sexuality)
•rediscover the riches of monastic practices in the local church; things like the daily office of Scripture reading and prayer, communing with Jesus while active, balancing activity and contemplation, spiritual direction, practicing Sabbath – especially to slow the church down

Pete’s bottom line is that for churches to be healthy missional families of faith, it is imperative that there be deep transformation in people’s lives, spiritually and emotionally – for indeed, emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable! Congregational health is not just about more Bible study and lots of programs for every age and interest either. It is about giving time and attention to self-care, loving relationships, communing with God and with each other, so that leadership and ministry result from the overflow of a vibrant, intimate life with Jesus.

Spiritual formation is an area that I am now helping to oversee here at Hilmar Covenant. I desperately want to see our congregation plumb the depths of “scuba spirituality!” It is clear that this will mean the re-ordering of some of the habits, priorities, patterns, and rhythms of life that currently characterize HCC – and the personal lives of us, the congregation. Though we have made good strides forward in the past few years, and are definitely in a better place than we were, if we simply pursue “business as usual” – if most of us are content with “snorkeling” across the surface of church life and spiritual growth – then we will not experience the profound and meaningful changes that I know all of us are anticipating as we welcome a new pastor into our midst.

Together, let us seek God passionately and purposefully, give more attention to one another in fellowship, care, and love, and pursue deeply transformed lives - individually and corporately - so we will become a more healthy, vibrant, spiritually mature church unlike any other! May we be a people of God whose effect on our community will be that of Acts 4:13: “They were astonished and they recognized that (we!) have been with Jesus.”