An article by William Easum called \u201cOn Not Being Nice \u2018For the Sake of the Gospel\u2019\u201c which is published in Net Results\/April 1997, opens with these three paragraphs:<\/p>\n
Throughout my consulting ministry, I have seen a disturbing pattern: Most established churches are held hostage by bullies. Some individual or small group of individuals usually opposes the church\u2019s making any radical change, even if it means the change would give the church a chance to thrive again. Courageous pastors often ask, \u201cWhat do I do when one or two persons intimidate the church so much that it is not willing to try something new?\u201d My response is always, \u201cEither convert them, neutralize them, kick them out, or kill them. The Body cannot live with cancer.\u201d To which someone usually cries, \u201cThat\u2019s not very Christian!\u201d<\/p>\n
However, my response reflects much of the wisdom of both the Old Testament and Jesus. Maturing Christians love so deeply that they will do anything, even not be nice, \u201cfor the sake of the gospel.\u201d Jesus was so compassionate toward others that he could not remain quiet when he saw people holding others in bondage. I think that we have confused \u201clove others\u201d with \u201cbeing nice.\u201d Easum makes this statement \u2014 in boldface \u2014 later in the article: I\u2019m convinced that one of the main sins of the Church is that we have taught ourselves to be nice instead of Christian.<\/p>\n
And still later in the article: People who would rather be nice than Christian do not love enough. They do not have enough compassion. Instead, they are afraid of hurting someone or of being hurt. But fear is the opposite of love: \u201cPerfect love casts out fear\u201d (1 John 4:18).<\/p>\n
__________
\nWilliam Easum, Net Results, April 1997<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An article by William Easum called \u201cOn Not Being Nice \u2018For the Sake of the Gospel\u2019\u201c which is published in Net Results\/April 1997, opens with these three paragraphs: Throughout my consulting ministry, I have seen a disturbing pattern: Most established churches are held hostage by bullies. Some individual or small group of individuals usually opposes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4468,2619,4470,2849,4469,1063],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}