Hi, my name is Pete Scazaro. I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy Leader Podcast. So good to be with you. Our topic today is power and wise boundaries, what church leaders must learn. Now, this is the most painful lesson I've learned in my decades of leadership. Made so many mistakes around power and dual relationships, healthy boundaries. So, I mean, it's it's a terrible dilemma. And I found it myself. I was a boss, I was the lead pastor, I was people's supervisor, but I was also their friend, which is complicated. And so I struggled with objectivity. Am I their friend? Am I their boss? And I couldn't be objective. And I was very muddled, uh, very confused, had mismanaged boundaries, hurt relationships. In fact, I would say this was the greatest leadership failure in all of my years, has been around mismanaging power and wise boundaries and issues like dual relationships. But it was such an impetus for me, after having made mistakes multiple times, to finally dig into this so deeply that it ended up as a core chapter in the book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, uh, where I wrote a whole chapter on it, because there was so little written about it on leadership. Uh, and uh, it was an eight-year project to write that book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader. But the problem is this almost every church, every ministry, every nonprofit that I've been in touch with, every community has had the experience of being scarred by a poor use of power. And uh this failure to steward it well and to have really good boundaries. And but yet it's so rarely discussed. And uh it just damages relationships. It kills the mission of Jesus. It's it's such a setback. Um, it's a waste of so much time, energy, and money. And it hurts the name of Jesus and his glory and the very work we're trying to do. So in this podcast, I'm gonna give tell you a bit of my story, give you some very specific examples on how do you do this in a healthy way. And I'm gonna actually close with eight very specific principles for you to begin to shift your behavior uh and hopefully lead people in a much healthier way for the long-term flourishing of your ministry. So uh, but this is gonna require some serious maturity and care. So listen, power is not a dirty word. It's power is very simply can be defined as it's the capacity to influence. It's the capacity to influence. So, in a sense, everyone on earth has power. That is God-given dignity and ability to influence other people, uh, either they don't have a formal position of leadership. Uh, it's using our resources, it's, it's, it, it's, it's so critical uh to get a good sense of how much power I have. But the problem is, uh, I've had a guy named Robert, Robert Goulov wrote a whole book on it, very helpful. And he makes the point that everyone, in a sense, does have this leadership gifts. But two things happened. One is some of us, we underuse our power, and I was that. I didn't realize I had this kind of power even when I was lead pastor of our church 26 years. Uh, and so therefore, I wouldn't step up and exercise it appropriately. There was a vacuum, and others would step in inappropriately. And I didn't protect people because I didn't even know I had this kind of power. Other people overuse their power and they manipulate, they abuse, they hurt people. We see that in people like Saul. Uh, when you underuse your power, like I was doing, it ends up being like the book of judges. Everyone does as they see fit. And when you overuse your power, you end up becoming more like a Saul in 1 Samuel 15. So most leaders, again, most leaders I know don't have a good sense of how do I steward these boundaries? And and uh, we're running on empty. Uh we have deep scars coming from our own pasts. And so I want to pick a pause here, and I want to personally invite you to our emotionally healthy global leader conference here in New York City, uh, September 30th, October 1st. First time we're doing one in a very long time, uh, but it's gonna happen this year, uh, 2026. And we're gonna talk about how do I steward power and wise boundaries. How do I, the theme is actually redefining success. How do I create a flourishing culture out of which the mission of Jesus can flow? And how do I live in the spaciousness, the joy, and the freedom of Jesus as I lead for him? And how do I live under a healthy scorecard? In other words, measuring what matters most to Jesus and not so much what matters most to the world. So I want to invite you to you come, bring your team because it's an opportunity for you to taste and experience what this even looks like and tastes like. Again, just go to emotionallyhealthy.org slash conference. And if you hear this in time, get in on the early bird special to register. Again, there's a discounted rate if you bring your whole team. So worth your time. Again, again, just go to emotionallyhealthy.org slash conference. Love to see you there as we all learn to steward our power well. So let's talk about my story for a bit, okay? And and uh where where roles got all entangled and muddled. I I became a Christian in the university, and I eventually went on staff with a group called Intervarsity. And the way we handled power was we're all equals. And I remember there was one student fellowship that I was leading, and uh actually we were all leading together. There's about maybe 30, 35 of us, and we were into body life, 1 Corinthians chapter 12. So nobody was going to have any kind of a power or leadership role. We were all gonna extract our gifts. But then we got stuck where we couldn't make every decision had to be unanimous. And so we got to a point where we couldn't make any decisions because it was always one, actually, it was actually two people in particular that always objected to certain initiatives. And so I finally got so flustered. Now, again, I was a I was a staff person. I wasn't a student at the time. So I was kind of giving oversight to the fellowship, and I was so frustrated that I called a seasoned staff worker from another, you know, university to come over and give me some perspective. And he walked in and within 15 minutes he said to me, Oh, Pete, uh, there's two people in this group of 30, 35 people that has all the power. It's these two over here, because they just object to anything that they don't like and they they kill it. And so just call it what it is. The power is not in everybody, all 30, 35. It's actually in those two folks over there. But they've set up a system of body life where they actually have veto power over everything. It was just so helpful. But I had this kind of student mentality when I started our church, even. And I didn't have a sense that there was any kind of hierarchy of leadership and power, but I saw it as we're all in this thing together. And so we were friends. Uh I was the lead pastor, but we were all in this thing together. We were sharing together, learning together. And uh, and so I remember at one point, uh, some different visions began to emerge. And I told one fellow who had been with us from the beginning, I remember he just had a different vision of the way he wanted new life fellowship to go. And I remember saying to him, no, no, that's not the way I want to go. And he goes, I know, but who who made you the leader? I said, Well, I'm the lead pastor. And he goes, Oh, you're you're pulling that card now. I thought we were all equal here. And that was my first experience of power being very muddled and confused. It was very difficult. Uh again, he had sacrificed so much, it hurt our friendship, uh, very painful. And then as the church grew larger and larger, we set up some structures, except it was a board, there was a personnel committee, et cetera. But we came to a place, the church had grown quite large. It was probably about 15, 20, maybe 20 people, 25 people on staff. And there were two good, very good friends of mine. One was a spouse of a good friend, another was a good friend. And the church had grown and they were on staff, but they had not, they had not grown with the church necessarily. And I remember for a while I was doing their job because I couldn't bear the thought of them leaving staff. It was kind of like you're on staff, you're my friend, you're here for life. But it was very clear to lots of people this wasn't a good fit anymore. And I remember being in a place saying, Oh, I'm in a, I'm in a jam here because I can't, I I I know I'm the lead pastor, but I can't fire them. I mean, they're my friends. And I hit such a wall that I realized I probably need to resign over this. And and that's when I, the, the, our, the issue began that we're talking about today, power and wise boundaries, began to get clearer to me. How do you exercise power in a healthy way? And make a long story short, uh, I did eventually let the two of them go. Uh, and we paid a terrible price as a result. Not the church so much. The church did fine. It was more our friendships, our community, Jerry uh and me, that was so impacted. We lost a bunch of our close friends that we had spent 20 years building some close friendships at the time in Queens, New York. It was devastating. Um, and I did consider, like I, to me, it was such a horrific moment. I consider it my most, my biggest failure in my leadership. I don't think I did it well. Uh I did it okay. Uh actually, our we we are friends now, many, many years later, but it was really painful and uh created so much misunderstanding. I wish I had done it much better than I did. Uh and again, it was a bummer. And it caught the cost was great of not doing it as well as I wish I could have done it. And actually, again, the EH emotionally healthy leader book was written out of that painful uh episode, uh episode instance, and I realized, oh, that was one of the major leadership lessons of an emotionally healthy leader, and so I wrote that whole chapter about it. But let me dive into right now. There's eight principles of stewarding our power well, and I'm gonna go through them rather quickly. You can pick you can read it in the chapter on power and wise boundaries in the emotionally healthy leader book. But let me just review the core ones for you here today. The first is this we've got to do an honest inventory of our power. In other words, we've got to look at it, and I break it down to six categories of our power. Uh the again, the problem is so few of us have an awareness of our power because we measure it based on how we feel on the inside. Uh, but it's really important that everyone re-especially those of us in leadership, reflect on our power as we are saying, whether you're a small group leader, a worship person on the worship team, whether you're just a member of a church, let alone a lead pastor, associate pastor, director of a ministry, maybe you're on, maybe you're leading a nonprofit or on staff at a nonprofit. Again, regardless, but you have power. So there's you have to steward that power. It's not yours. It's given to you by God for a short time on earth and it must be stewarded. So here's some of the categories to do an evaluation or at least an awareness of your power. First, there's a the God power. When we speak for God, that's power. We speak what we believe God is saying or what God wants to do, that's power. And so when we approach people and we have, you know, people see us as people having power, which is a second kind of power that they evaluate, is I'll call it positional power. Anytime you have a position formally with a title, that's power. Uh, it carries something with it. Then there's projected power. People project onto us uh how they see us. And if you're like me, I was I'm preaching, I was preaching on Sundays, week after week, or most weeks, speaking for God. Well, people project on you that you actually know a lot more than you do, that you can make decisions about architecture. They think, oh, he gets to, he knows God, he hears God, and and they project onto you more than actually we we merit. But that's a level of power. And then you've got things like personal power. That is, we have gifts given by God and skills and talents that are pure grace. That those are that's just personally given to us by God. Uh and again, people, because of our gifts, will attribute power to us that you know, there's lots of other aspects of power, but gifts are power. Uh and then there's things like relational power. If you've been in a uh a community for a long period of time, you have relational power with people. Uh and I was a founder of our church. I had tremendous power after 26 years. I mean, everyone came in under my leadership. Uh and then, of course, there's cultural and gender and generational power. Uh, what culture you are, the color of your skin, how old you are, uh, that all impacts people. So it's really important to do a healthy assessment of my power so that you're aware of it because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to God, and you're stewarding it for a season. But a second big principle if you do an honest assessment of your power is oh, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, let me just take a couple more moments about power. Uh, I didn't do an honest assessment of my power. I didn't understand it. It felt like a dirty word to me. And I used to feel powerless. The the irony was I had all this power, but I felt powerless on the inside. Now that came out of my genogram, my family of origin, came out of a family and history of abuse. Uh, when you've, if you've ever been, if you've been abused, you know what it's like to be powerless in those situations. Uh, and so I couldn't see the impact I was having on people. You know, a study was done by Catherine Wengren, I believe her last name was from Harvard. And she wrote, she was writing about the Holocaust. And she was right, the most dangerous people are Holocaust survivors were Holocaust survivors who didn't understand the power they had in their own families with their own children or in their own organizations. And that the most dangerous people are folks who are unaware of their power. And I'm telling you, it's true. Because remember, remember, power is the capacity to influence. That's why, again, doing a genegram, understanding your history and its impact on your present and your leadership is so important and why it's so core to the emotionally healthy spirituality and the relationships course. So, even for example, I I just I used to say to Jerry all the time, she was a spouse of the lead pastor that she had a lot of power. And she used to say to me in the early days, Oh, I don't have any power, I don't have any position. I said, Jerry, you're the spouse of the lead pastor. That's a lot of power. It's real. Uh, and it's more loving to acknowledge it than to deny it. Um, when a board, I was with someone just recently, there it was a board member uh of a church, and he was referring to the fact that there was a person that the lead pastor needed to be held into account for some things he was saying and doing. But the board wasn't doing it. They weren't holding a lead pastor accountable, and even though it was their role, and I said, Do you realize you have power, but you're not exercising it? This is not going to end well. And he shaked his head, he said, Yes, I know it, but we really got to get our act together, you know, like, yeah. And I've seen churches where there was no board. There was a founding pastor and some large, very large churches, and there was no other power but the lead pastor. He he was there was no board. There was nobody over him or her. And uh that's dangerous. Uh I um I spoke recently at my local church where I'm I am now. I'm a member of a church, and I spoke at a pastor's conference at our church, and that's when all these people realized oh, Pete Pete writes books and Pete does this. And I realized, oh, people were looking at me so differently because they heard me speak. It was a it was 300 pastors in the room. I write books, they were like, oh my goodness. And so I realized power shifted there at that moment, even though I don't have any position at our church right now. We've only been there a year, a year and a half. Uh uh, and I love the church, but I'm trying not to be in any positional power. But I realize, oh, that changed the dynamic for people. Uh and again, that's why organizational charts I think are important because an organizational chart shows lines of authority. It doesn't show everything, but it does show where there is authority and it's it's honest at least. So again, so first you want to do an honest assessment of your power. And then you want to uh acknowledge dual relationships. You want to acknowledge dual relationships. That's the second principle. Now, a dual relationship is when we have more than one role in a person's life. Now, say for example, when you go to a doctor, the doctor's your doctor. They're not, you're not going on vacation with the doctor. He he or she just sees you. They they're professionals, you pay them money, you get a service, you leave. You go to a lawyer, you pay them money, they give you a service, they have certain competency. You go to a person that does my taxes. They're they're tax accountants. They, they, I pay them, they do it. We're not going on vacation together, we're not going out to dinner. Uh it's a clear relationship. It's not a dual relationship. Um, a relationship, it's a relationship that has certain boundaries. In fact, if you're a doctor or a lawyer, for example, there's certain ethical uh codes that they have to sign up for to be a doctor and a lawyer. Um, but there's only one role that you have in a person's life. So uh they're the experts and you're a recipient of that expertise. So you can't think you could go to a therapist or a spiritual director. So, therefore, what happens? For example, you're a pastor. I'm a pastor. And uh I I had a I was friendly with a fellow in our church who eventually became the board chair. His name was Andrew. He was chairperson of a board of elders. He was now my boss. We had to have a discussion because he was now my boss. Uh, although I'm always his pastor. So that's very dual relationship. But he was first my boss. And it was a change of our relationship. Our friendship took a back seat, uh, and we had to talk about it because he could fire me now. So we were, you know, friendships, friendship has an equality to it. We were no longer on that footing. I was handing him a report every month. He was evaluating me on an annual basis. It was different. So that's why a person on your staff, a person who's on your team, is not your spiritual director because you're leading that team, perhaps, or they're not your therapist. Uh therapist is hopefully someone outside or objective. But that's why a person who's in your church or a pastor or a leader was also running an organization to make money, uh, a pyramid scheme, or a pyramid ministry, pyramid organizational generate money, or they're a real estate agent, but they're also your pastor. It's very complicated or a board member. That's a dual relationship. I allowed myself uh to become like a father to the person who was at one time our youth pastor. I was her father mentor, and then I hired her as our youth pastor. So then I became her boss. Well, that was really complicated when things weren't working out real well, and I had to uh discipline her and fire her at one point. It was a disaster. It was like a father betraying his daughter. That's how she felt. But I allowed myself to get into a dual relationship with her, and I really hurt her. And I take responsibility for that because the responsibility when something like that happens is always with the person with greater power because we have the power. So again, dual relationships are when you have more than one uh role with a person, and the weight of the problem is always with the person with greater power. So you want to monitor dual relationships. At the same time, we can't eliminate and we shouldn't, all dual relationships in the church. Because we see, for example, Moses was the leader, but Aaron and Miriam, his siblings, were key leaders in coming out of that promised land. I mean, uh David uh handed down leadership to his son Solomon, who then handed it to his son. So that was a there was family involved in that. Um, Peter and the 12 apostles was brothers, he his brother was Andrew. James and John were brothers. So you see some dual relationships. They're apostles, but yet they're siblings. Uh uh, you know, John and James were siblings. And Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple, and yet they they served in a sense on staff together, the two of them. And if the Priscilla was the leader of uh uh Aquila. And then, of course, you had James, the brother of Jesus, he led the Jerusalem church. So fascinating. So we don't always want to eliminate them. You just want to be very aware of them because if something goes badly in a dual relationship, it is rough. It's very, very tough. So you want to be aware of it, you want to monitor it, uh, you want to be careful with it. All right, third principle is clarify primary roles. Clarify primary roles. So, in other words, you want to be friends with friends, you want to be a supervisor to people under you, volunteers or paid. You want to be a mentor to mentorese. So you want to clarify what's my primary role with this person? So I mentioned Andrew, who was the board chair. He was a friend of mine. I also was his pastor. My primary role with him was uh I was his pastor, but then he became my boss. So his primary role was he was my supervisor. That really changed our other relationships. It's really important. Um, friendships work among peers. When there's a friendship, there's equal power and sharing. I remember when I was in the early days, when I was friends with people in our church uh in a very friendly way, and I was very confused about this. And they would ask me about what happened at the board meeting. And I said it's really not appropriate for me to talk about that with you. But they want to know, because we're friends, like, why are you hiding anything from me? And it's like, well, it's just not appropriate. And it was friction there uh because we didn't, we didn't, again, we don't understand power. So we had to clarify primary roles there. And uh the the the so the balance is friends are friends and there's a sense of equality with it. The fourth principles is this you want to enlist wise counsel to monitor dual relationships as needed. Because you're gonna have some dual relationships in the church. You just want to acknowledge it and you wanna get some wise counsel in the midst of it to. Make sure all is good. Again, so I'll give an example. Jerry was on staff, my wife at our church. Imagine we were founders. Church was large at this point. And so we we, because she wasn't my co-pastor, she had different titles and roles, but she has tremendous power being my spouse. And she was so gifted. She would occasionally preach, talented. And we tried at one point to have her under a one a person who was only on staff one year, that he'd she'd report to him. It was foolish. It was we recognized. We had to talk about it as a board and how to, how does she fit in the org chart and all that. But we had to recognize she had a level of power. And she was in a dual relationship with people on staff because she was mentoring many of them as well, yet she wasn't necessarily in that supervisory role. Again, I learned, I had to, I remember going to a fellow who had had a staff of like 120 people. He's also a PhD therapist at the same time. He taught me a lot about dual roles and how to monitor it, how to have discussions about it. I remember I had a person who was a therapist, and she was very wise and helped me sort out my power, dual roles, have healthy conversations. It was awesome. So you want to enlist wise counsel as it happens to you, as it will happen to you. Fifthly, is again the burden of boundaries. I mentioned it earlier that the burden to set boundaries is on the person with greater power. Why? Because you have greater power. And so when I was a lead pastor and I became friends with some people and they got hurt by me, uh, it's really, I take full responsibility for it because I I didn't acknowledge, I didn't realize how much power I had. And so we're going camping, uh, we're hanging out in all these informal settings, and yet on midweek I'm I'm evaluating them. And they can't fire me, but I can fire them. They're they're paying their mortgage because I'm their, you know, I'm their employer and their friend. And so I got us in a situation where when I had to say some things that were really hard, that were more I was their lead pastor, I was stewarding the resources of the church and hiring staff. They got really hurt. And, you know, I take full responsibility for hurting them because I'm the one with the greater power. And uh I wasn't, you know, acknowledging it and I didn't handle it well. So that's why giving people a title and power too quickly uh is not good. And so it's really important that you don't create confusion. You're aware, you're monitoring it, and you're exercising your power to come, as Jesus said, we use it to serve people, to come under people, not to be over them. Sixth principle about power and wise boundary is you wanna you want to be sensitive to cultural, ethnic, gender, and generational uh factors. You want to be really sensitive to culture, ethnicity, gender, and uh generational dynamics, because uh they're all a dynamic. Now, again, we had a church with 73 nations in it, but I'm very aware of uh, you know, age, how many cultures have such respect for age. I mean, you know, if your person is 20 and I'm in my late 60s, that's a pretty big age difference. Uh, that's a level of power. Culture. A white male and a person of color or a person from a who's a uh an immigrant who immigrated here from a country, somewhere around the world, they're new in the country. English isn't great. I mean, they're they look at America very differently. And here I am, they're lead pastor. Again, I was I I was unaware of that. I I realized I finally got to a place realizing certain cultures, they can't say no to authority, especially from some Asian countries where Confucianism is is the backdrop, such respect and reverence for authority, which is a good thing, but they have to be learned to say, how do you say no? Uh and I used to, I I became aware if I ask certain people to do something, they they for them it's an order, they have to do it, uh, because they really just can't say no to it. It's such so contra their culture. So you want to become very aware of power around culture, gender, ethnicity, uh, and age, because it's all significant. And then seventhly, you want to have honest conversations early. I mean, as early as possible about the risks, about the challenges, about the expectations. Uh, and again, you just want to have those conversations early on, not later when things have developed. So if a family member is on staff or a really good friend or on the team, you want to talk about it uh before something happens, and maybe you have to ask them to leave the team. Uh listen, I'm no longer the president of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship. Drew Hyun is. Uh, and so therefore, I'm very aware of the power dynamic, is anything I do with an EH discipleship, I may be the founder, but I am not president any longer. And so I want to make sure everything I do fits in with his larger plan of where EH discipleship is going. And uh I'm aware of managing that power and coming under to serve him and the board and the other staff and not using it inappropriately, very important for succession. And then finally, last principle is this eighth principle uh is do your inner work when you get triggered. Oh, yes. Do your work when you get triggered. You get triggered, you'll get triggered by people. I used to get triggered by people. I'd be hurt. I would get angry. I would get so angry with folks. I just want to explode off them. Well, the person with greater power, you don't have that option. You want to process your anger somewhere else because you have this power. And so when you're triggered, you've got to have some places to go to monitor those triggers and work through them so that you lead well and you don't use your power and hurt people and say things that are inappropriate or wounding. Uh, you can expect your unresolved family of origin issues to erupt. They will come out. That's one of the gifts of leadership. It is a crucible for our own formation. Uh, things will emerge. So, what do you do? You have a you have a mentor, you have a friend, maybe a board member, somebody who's got some wisdom that you can go to when you're triggered. Uh, but where do you go? Who are those people? We all need supervisors, bishops, mentors, therapists, you name it, but you want to have people to go to when you are triggered. Just one little final application, practical application. It has to do with endings and letting people go. Hiring someone is easy. Letting someone go from even a volunteer position is really hard. It's challenging. So you want to do it gently. You want to do it thoughtfully. You want to do it prudently. Uh, hiring is easy, letting go someone is hard. Volunteer or paid. So never hire someone hastily. Do the hard work of writing a job description, getting other people involved, being thoughtful, have a process, have a testing period if possible, have a committee or some other people involved in the process. Don't rush, be careful. It's better to have a position vacant than to fill it with someone then having to ask them to leave. But understand your power as you offer people positions uh and give them authority and ask them to do something. Again, your primary role at that point is you are the supervisor, you are the boss. It's really, it's not an enviable position because it's power that belongs to God that we're stewarding, or you want to steward it to love people and come under them. Uh, and that has to be carefully managed. A prudent person gives thought to their ways. Proverbs 14, 8. A hasty person misses the way. So again, final word here. Leading is lonely. I don't care what level you are, there's a loneliness involved in leadership, but it's a it's a gift because it's a crucible. We grow in ways that we could never have grown any other way. So, yes, it's lonely, but it's a gift. I consider one of the great gifts of my life has been to have to wrestle in this furnace with my own stuff, my own failures. And I've had to learn, I hope you will learn too, to forgive myself when I make a mistake, seek to be reconciled to people, acknowledge them. Uh, but I'm actually living out the gospel very practically uh in growing in that process. So uh again, the loneliness can be a great gift, but you will make mistakes, forgive yourself in it. So let me just encourage you uh as a final step here, you want to go to emotionallyhealthy.org slash leader. And on that, in our website, uh, I want to encourage you to pick up the EH leader book. Uh, but there's a free discussion guide, some videos. There's actually in the book an inventory of how you handle power and wise boundaries. It's a 10-question inventory, really worth taking uh in in the emotionally healthy leader book. But go to emotionallyhealthy.org slash leader and uh check out the free resources that go with what we've talked about today. And I trust you'll find it helpful. But may God bless you. May God's good hand rest upon you. May you mature into a leader who, with their power, comes under people and serves them and use it like Jesus, gently, humbly for his glory and his honor and the building up of people and the advancement of the name of Jesus in the world. Blessings. May you grow and mature in this. Look forward to seeing you on the next podcast.