The Daily Office, Contemplative Spirituality, and Fixed Hour Prayer

For the past several weeks I have been reading from Day By Day by Peter Scazzero at the start of each of our Morning Blend sessions. This is a devotional or daily "office" book written by Scazzero to assist the reader in practicing contemplative spirituality in a rhythmic, twice-a-day manner. To hear more about the premise of this book, you can watch Scazzero's video introduction here:

If you like the idea of introducing this ancient Christian practice into your own life and want to check out more resources, you might take a look at some of the works of Phyllis Tickle, who was a speaker in the Animate: Bible series we studied a few years ago. You can read several excerpts from her book and read more about Daily Offices/Divine Hours by following this link: The Divine Hours.  Tickle includes an article on her own website, About Fixed Hour Prayer, where she also recommends a book by Shane Claiborne, who is part of the Animate: Practices series that we may be studying in the spring. On his website, you can find daily prayers online: Common Prayer.

Video Introduction to Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

The video repeats a fair amount of what you'll find in the book, but if you're looking for an audio-visual intro to the study, here it is!!

Who is Peter Scazzero?

Our upcoming study, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is by Peter Scazzero:

Pete Scazzero is the Founder of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, NYC, a large, multiracial, international church with seventy-three countries represented. After serving as Senior Pastor for twenty-six years, Pete now serves as a Teaching Pastor/Pastor at Large. He is the author of two best-selling books: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan, 2010) and most recently released The Emotionally Healthy Leader (Zondervan, 2015). He is also the author of The EHS Course (Zondervan, 2014) and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (Zondervan, 2013).

Pete and his wife Geri are the founders of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, a groundbreaking ministry that equips churches in a deep, beneath-the-surface spiritual formation paradigm that integrates emotional health and contemplative spirituality. They have four lovely daughters.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

What's brewing at Morning Blend? Starting September 9th, we will be studying Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, an 8-session series by Peter Scazzero. A synopsis from the website says this,

Pete Scazzero learned the hard way: you can’t be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. Even though he was a pastor of a growing church, he did what most people do:

• Avoid conflict in the name of Christianity
• Ignore his anger, sadness, and fear
• Use God to run from God
• Live without boundaries

Eventually God awakened him to a biblical integration of emotional health, a relationship with Jesus, and the classic practices of contemplative spirituality. It created nothing short of a spiritual revolution, utterly transforming him and his church.

In this best-selling book Pete Scazzero outlines his journey and the signs of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. Then he provides seven biblical, reality-tested ways to break through to the revolutionary life Christ meant for you. “The combination of emotional health and contemplative spirituality,” he says, “unleashes the Holy Spirit inside us so that we might experientially know the power of an authentic life in Christ.”

It's a new year! We're looking forward to being challenged to learn and grow!