A Sureer Footing
July 1, 2002
"Pete, I'm leaving the church," Geri told her husband, the pastor. "I no longer respect your leadership." "I'm working on it!" Pete yelled. "Good for you, but I can't wait any more," she replied. "I quit." Pete and Geri Scazzero began New Life Fellowship in Queens, New York, eight years before Geri's announcement. Their neighborhood, Elmhurst, may be the most ethnically diverse in America—over 120 nationalities are represented in its Zip code. New Life was succeeding where others had failed, bringing diverse nationalities together into one church. Despite the appearance of success, the Scazzero's marriage and the church's leadership were crumbling. New Life suffered a staff-led split, the pastor's depression, and now the pastor's wife was giving up. What did I do wrong? Pete wondered. Seven years have passed since the day Geri "quit." Pete is still pastor of New Life Fellowship. Geri is still his wife, and she still attends the church. But New Life is radically different today, and so are the Scazzeros. As Pete and Geri rebuilt their marriage and their ministry, they identified mistakes that undermined them from the beginning. The biggest was misapplying Jesus' admonition from Luke 9:23, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Leadership editors Marshall Shelley and Drew Zahn traveled to Queens to ask the Scazzeros how they found healing and what they've learned. Where did the problems begin? Pete: We are poster-child evangelicals—grew up Catholic, converted in college, and joined InterVarsity staff. When we left InterVarsity, we couldn't find an established church that fit the model of ministry we learned in the parachurch. I wanted to bring the best of the parachurch—evangelism, ...
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