Tag: #conflict

Posted on

Reflections on Christian Leadership with Henri Nouwen Part 1

I recently picked up one of my favourite books to read AGAIN – In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen. It is one of those books where the impact of the truths contained in it is not diminished with repetition. This time, particular parts of it collided with my current experience with such eye-widening relevance that my impulse to process and memorialize in writing was aroused.

I will start this mini-series with the first quote that struck me from the book:

“But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relavistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”

“Willing to confront without being offensive”. This phrase aptly describes the crux of my current struggle at work. I’m pretty good at the confront part (and there was a time I did not know how to confront people), but I am not as good at the not being offensive part.

If I’m honest, I have been bad at this for a very long time. But I feel like there comes a time when God says, “OK, you cannot take this malformation any further. You need to work on this now.” Or maybe there comes a time when one has the maturity and tools to deal with the problem. Either way, I know I have to deal with this in this season.

Actually, and this just came to me: Nouwen points to intimacy with God as the enablement to walk this line of confrontation without offense, and it is quite probable that I did not have the level of intimacy with Christ that I now have to be able to cross this hurdle. (Ahh, the therapeutic gift of writing.)

The way I see it, the challenge is to be able to authentically say to someone, “I think what you are doing is bad,” without saying, “I think you are bad.” This is not easy, at least not for me. I never shout or curse or demean people, but my wife says, “Just because you say something in a soft voice doesn’t mean that you are not being harsh.”

Honestly, I thought it did mean that I wasn’t being harsh! I mean, c’mon… I don’t curse… I don’t raise my voice… I’m always polite, even when people are impolite and raise their voice at me. What more do you want? Well… as it turns out, what God wants is nothing less than loving my ‘enemies’ even while confronting them. That goes heart deep, below actions, below words, below tone… deeper.

That kind of love can only come from intimacy with Love. Love must dwell in me. Overflow from me. It must be felt. Holy Spirit, help me. I write today not as one having mastered love but as one in the throes of struggle to become more like Jesus and often getting it wrong. I have no advice to offer.

I offer only the consolation of knowing that if you struggle too, you are not alone. Pray for me as I pray for you: Jesus, for every one of your disciples who reads this, give them the gift of a deeper encounter with your ferocious, unrelenting, cleansing, healing, breathtaking love. As they wrestle in their souls, may all malice, bitterness, envy, and unforgiveness die by the power of the cross! May love win the day! May their hearts burn for you and may your love emanate from their lives, from the very centre of their Jesus-enflamed hearts.

Amen.

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
Posted on

Connection vs. Separation

The issue of connection versus separation continues to resonate with me so much that I decided to continue the topic this week. I have repeatedly had to be coached by the Spirit to build bridges that nurture relationship with friends, co-workers and neighbours rather than say things that destroy the relationship simply because I felt I had a just cause.

We will always have points of disagreement with others. That is just a fact of life. Even (especially?) in the church. Different denominations will have different doctrines. Different churches within the same denomination will have variations in interpretation or practice. Even members within the same congregation can have very distinct beliefs.

How does our Father and the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, want us to address this reality? Especially when it comes to disagreement on issues of morality or our faith?

I believe the first thing that God wants is humility. We don’t get to decide who is worthy of our love or our relationship. God does. We also do not get to decide who is part of the Body of Christ and we are not the foremost authority on church doctrine. We have to be able to genuinely admit that we may ourselves believe some things that are not accurate. This should be easier for any Christian who has been walking with Christ for some time. Any Christian with a decade or more of growth under his belt I am sure can look back and say, “Boy did I have a wrong view of that particular issue or of life in general.”

The second step is a determination to choose love over fear. Most people choose separation rather than connection because we are afraid of one or both of two things:

  1. Contamination – the other person/church with the ‘bad’ belief system or lifestyle will cause us or our flock to go astray.
  2. Defamation – if other people see us with this ‘bad’ person or at that ‘bad’ church, they will think we believe or condone what they do.

Both paradigms are based on fear and fear is from the enemy. Perfect love casts out all fear. Jesus modelled God’s love when dealing with people with different beliefs or sinful lifestyles. He ate with sinners and talked with Samaritans. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation and peace-making not division.

I am confident that God wants us to connect with others in humility and love because that is what He did. God could have stayed in heaven, separate from our filth, but He didn’t. Instead he chose to become vulnerable, connecting with us in physical form, in our filth. He came and viewed the world from our viewpoint even though we were sinners and heretics.

As sons of God we must choose love. When I see the amount of content posted online by Christians dedicated to discrediting and pulling down other Christians it makes me smad (sad and mad at the same time 😉). It’s perfectly normal to disagree with others. It’s healthy to have dialogue directly with that person to exchange viewpoints. But to cut off relationship with that person is a step that should not be taken lightly (I don’t mean that you have to become friends or partners. Just relate.) And, it is a whole next level to defame/slander that person to others.

James 4:11-12

11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Let us please change this paradigm of separation. Let us mature in our ability to disagree with others while simultaneously remaining committed to relationship and love. You cannot influence anything that you are not connected to. Believers are described by Jesus as the salt of the world. Do you think that we can live this identity by staying separate, keeping our salt nice and clean in our holy saltshakers?

We also cannot influence anything if we are not willing to be ourselves influenced. We must embrace vulnerability because connecting with people who we disagree with means that we must be open to the possibility that we could actually learn something from them that makes us see a different view of life and adjusts our understanding of reality. I believe this is exactly what God intended. The complexity of God cannot be contained in just one person’s viewpoint. And therefore, we will never mature and come to the fullness of Christ unless we are equipped by that which each part of the body supplies. And this is what I believe is ultimately at stake – the maturity of the church. Let us choose to mature. Let us choose to connect.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.