HOW TO DEAL WITH OPPOSITION

We are different due to the life-reversing approach exemplified by Jesus.  No one enters the kingdom with Shade Tree formulas and equations.  Nor will Doctrinal Discourses hold.  The very nature of Jesus is to defy earth's gravitational wisdom.  This is why the babes were the only ones to grasp it.

Tullian Tchividjian, in his wonderful book Jesus + Nothing = Everything, recalls the incredible stress he encountered when he and others engaged in blending his five year old New City church with the long-established Coral Ridge church of Dr. James Kennedy fame.  More than 90% of the Coral Ridge family voted for the blending.  But then...there was that remaining less than 10%.

With the merger and the leadership transition, a small but vocal group of long-time Coral Ridge members immediately began voicing opposition to practically any and every change we initiated or even considered at the church.  Blogs were posted, notes and letters were circulated--some anonymously--with false accusations about me.  Just three months after I arrived, a vigorous petition drive was started to get me removed, and it gained steam.  Some people began lamenting the huge mistake they'd made in agreeing to the merger, and they grumbled that the whole thing had turned into a "hostile takeover."  Their tone was frequently heated and vicious.  Battle lines were drawn, rumors raced, and the spirits of those who supported me sagged.  There was a crescendo of misunderstandings, frustrations, and pain.

Each time I read this account I think of the time when a large group exited a neighboring Church of Christ, placed membership at Memorial, and then soon formed a meeting to fire me.  It was a confusing, and yet important, part of my ministry.

And, Tchividjian learned something in this moment of upheaval that I began to note as well. 

I was learning the hard way that the gospel alone can free us from our addiction to being liked--that Jesus measured up for us so that we wouldn't have to live under the enslaving pressure of measuring up for others...

...When that difficult year was over, I'd be able to look back and realize that God seemed bigger to me than ever, while I'd never been so small.

He had stripped me down--wrecked me afresh!  And when he does that to a person--when you actually feel like you have nothing--Jesus becomes more to you than you ever could have hoped or imagined....

....Rediscovering the gospel enabled me to see that:

• because Jesus was strong for me, I was free to be weak;
• because Jesus won for me, I was free to lose;
• because Jesus was someone, I was free to be no one;
• because Jesus was extraordinary, I was free to be ordinary;
• because Jesus succeeded for me, I was free to fail.

I write this not to rehearse sour grapes; but rather to point to the necessary vineyard of riches found in the very center of the things most of us ministers wish to avoid.  True life in the true kingdom will insist we be whittled to nothing so that He can become everything.

Never give up.