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About this item
Highlights
- God never called us to be nice.What happens when we replace courage with compromise?
- About the Author: Sharon Hodde Miller is a pastor's wife, a mother to two small boys, and the author of Free of Me.
- 224 Pages
- Religion + Beliefs, Christian Life
Description
About the Book
Drawing on the Parable of the Sower, speaker, blogger, and Bible teacher unpacks five destructive idols of "nice" Christianity we must discard to experience life-giving fruits of authentic discipleship.Book Synopsis
God never called us to be nice.What happens when we replace courage with compromise?
What happens when we replace honesty with likability?
What happens when we replace conviction with clichés?
What happens when we replace discipleship to Christ with a devotion to nice?
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 bland, bitter, empty, and rotten to the core.
In this life-changing book, Sharon Hodde Miller explores the seemingly innocent idol that has crept into our faith and quietly corrupted it, producing the bad fruits of cowardice, inauthenticity, shallowness, and more. Then she challenges readers to cultivate a better tree, providing practical steps to reclaim our credibility as followers of Christ, and bear better, richer, more life-giving fruits.
From the Back Cover
"This book is challenging me and helping me to discover a truer way to live authentically free. Sharon is a refreshing voice full of truth and wisdom."--Lysa TerKeurst, #1 New York Times bestselling author and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries***
God never called us to be nice.
Niceness. It keeps the peace, wins friends, gains influence, and serves our reputations well. It looks a lot like following Jesus, but it takes all the power and freedom out of our lives. In this eye-opening book, Sharon Hodde Miller shares her own battle with this false faith, confesses the bad fruit it produced in her life, and offers practical steps for cutting down the tree at its root.
With biblical wisdom, surprising insight, and deep conviction, this book will help you
- identify the most common forms of nice Christianity and how they manifest in your life
- stop being nice and start practicing true kindness, honesty, courage, and joy
- develop a deeper, sturdier faith that can withstand life's storms and even flourish in the middle of them
Take a stand, take back your faith, and follow the Savior who was kind, gentle, compassionate, patient, and good, but never simply nice.
Sharon Hodde Miller leads Bright City Church in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Ike. In addition to speaking all over the country and earning her PhD, she is the author of Free of Me: Why Life Is Better When It's Not about You. Sharon is a regular contributor to sites like She Reads Truth, Propel, and Christianity Today, and she has blogged at SheWorships.com for over ten years. When she is not leading, teaching, or writing, her favorite place to be is at home with her husband and three kids.
About the Author
Sharon Hodde Miller is a pastor's wife, a mother to two small boys, and the author of Free of Me. In addition to earning her PhD, Sharon has blogged at SheWorships.com for nearly ten years, making God's Word accessible to women everywhere. She has been a regular contributor to Propel and Her.meneutics, and has written for Relevant, Christianity Today, (in)courage, She Reads Truth, and many other publications and blogs. She speaks regularly on topics ranging from leadership to body image to Scripture. She lives with her family in the Raleigh/Durham area.Dimensions (Overall): 8.4 Inches (H) x 5.4 Inches (W) x .6 Inches (D)
Weight: .7 Pounds
Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up
Number of Pages: 224
Genre: Religion + Beliefs
Sub-Genre: Christian Life
Publisher: Baker Books
Format: Paperback
Author: Sharon Hodde Miller
Language: English
Street Date: August 20, 2019
TCIN: 78014383
UPC: 9780801075247
Item Number (DPCI): 247-74-0473
Origin: Made in the USA or Imported
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Shipping details
Estimated ship dimensions: 0.6 inches length x 5.4 inches width x 8.4 inches height
Estimated ship weight: 0.7 pounds
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5.0 out of 5 stars with 3 reviews
100% would recommend
3 recommendations
Being Nice: Real or Fake?
5 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
Connie Saunders - 5 years ago
All of my life I've heard that I should be nice but in her new book Sharon Hodde Miller tells readers that "God did not call you to be nice." She supports this statement by focusing on the analogy that Jesus used in Matthew 7 when he stated that "Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit , nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit." In the first seven chapters of Nice: Why We Love to be Liked and How God Calls Us to More, Miller explains that the fruits of niceness can be fake, rotten, bland, bitter, hard, and processed. What does she suggest that we do? We must cultivate a better tree and the last six chapters are devoted to this concept. We can become better by finding our true purpose, rooting our soul, becoming deeper and better, and flourishing, so that the fruit we produce will be a lasting fruit!
This book is easy to read and easy to comprehend and I like that most of the chapters include the sections Taking Root (selected Bible scripture) and Digging Deeper (questions to help us increase our understanding). There are also several pages of notes with bibliographical references. I have been using it for my personal study but I believe that Nice would also be a valuable resource to use in a Women's Bible Study,
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author and Baker Publishing but a favorable review was not required. These are my own thoughts.
(no review title)
5 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
SoundMindMama - 6 years ago
As a recovering people pleaser, I was eager to dig in and start reading. I expected to be encouraged, challenged, and learn some practical skills to move past my desire for everyone to like me. This book is so much more than that! I can't wait for my hard copy to arrive so I can read again with a highlighter in hand. Each chapter is like sitting through an amazing sermon message and Sharon's writing is grounded in Biblical truth. This book just became my new reference guide for those time in my life where I just don't feel like I'm enough.
Convicting, truthful, amazing!
5 out of 5 stars
Thumbs up graphic, would recommend
S Yates - 6 years ago
This book is AMAZING! It's convicting, relevant, and makes you truly look at how you present yourself in a whole new light. It's one thing to be 'nice' and a whole other thing to be truly 'kind' and being kind in the manner that God has called us to.
It gives you the courage to do the hard things, but know that you're doing it because GOD. It's all about God in every aspect! I was challenged in this book to self examine, but it has made me come out stronger. Highly recommend, especially for a small group.