Sharon Hodde Miller - Nice Participants Guide: Why We Love to Be Liked and How God Calls Us to More

Why are you driving so SLOW!? I growled at the sluggish car ahead of me. I was already running late to church because I couldnt find one of my childrens shoes, and now this driver and every red light seemed to be conspiring against me. My blood pressure was rising higher and higher, and I didnt realize how loud my complaint had been until a tiny voice from the back chimed in,

Mommy, why are you so mad?

It was a classic case of road rage, and many of us have moments like it. Maybe they are your response to the unrelenting behavior of your kids. Or the rant you posted on social media or the rude comment you made to your spouse. It feels cathartic in the moment, but sometimes it leaves us with regret. Maybe I should have been a little bit more nice .

Im Sharon Hodde Miller, and Im so excited to join you in this study of Nice . Im a wife, mom, writer, and more recently, a church planter with my husband, Ike. As a long-time Christ follower, I feel like Ive always loved God and the church. But Ive noticed something going on in my heart, and in the church, for a while now.

In my first book, Free of Me , I describe myself as a nice Christian girl, and to be honest, it wasnt until recently that I started to see that as problematic.

Niceness . What is this niceness all about? Could it perhaps be adding pressure to behave in a certain curated way? Could my little blips of road rage, for instance, be due to that pressure bubbling over? If my quiet, private car is a place where I can comfortably speak unkindly to nearby drivers, perhaps my niceness isnt as fundamental to who I am, or to being a witness to Gods love, as I assumed it was. Perhaps its even causing me to lose sight of the path Jesus wants me to follow.

The truth is that God never called us to be nice. Yet we live in a culture that prizes niceness as one of its highest virtues. Niceness keeps the peace, wins friends, gains influence, and serves our reputations well, but it also takes the teeth out of our witness and the power out of our faith. When we choose to be nice instead of faithful, we bear fruits that are fake, bland, bitter, hard, and rotten to the core. The church is less healthy when all we want is a nice exterior.

The Bible does, however, call us to kindness, gentleness, and love. These fruits of the Spirit come from a healthy tree if you will. And as Jesus says, we will know a tree by its fruit.

In this five-session series, we will draw on this tree-and-fruit metaphor to explore the seemingly innocent idol that has crept into our faith and quietly corrupted it, producing several bad fruits. Then well challenge each other to cultivate a better tree, taking practical steps to reclaim our credibility as followers of Christ and bear better, richer, more life-giving fruits.

How to Read the Book as You Watch the Videos

If you are reading Nice while you view the videos, please know that they loosely correspond with the following chapters:

Session 1: Chapters 1 through 7

Session 2: Chapters 8 and 9

Session 3: Chapter 10

Session 4: Chapter 11

Session 5: Chapters 12 and 13

The videos do not cover every chapter, which is why you may want to begin by reading the first half of the book, and then pick up the video series when you arrive at chapter 8. No matter the order you choose, it is my prayer that this study will inspire deep conversation and transformative life change as you journey through it!

Lord Jesus, in our pursuit to love like you love, to show the world how wonderful and full of grace you are, we have become a nice peopleafraid, inauthentic, and shallow. We pray that through this study, you will show us the bad fruits that come from niceness and reveal how we can be your true disciples in a modern world. Lights that shine in the darkness, no matter how intimidating it can be. Amen.