Gossip

Scott Brown Online recently contained a great post on gossip. I am certainly no perfect woman when it comes to gossip, but I want to improve. Here is the start of the post:

Wilmington NC, pastor Devin Kerns shared with me one of his criteria for church membership - "no one can join this church without hearing my sermon on gossip."

He informs new members that he has a zero tolerance policy on gossip and evil speaking. He says, "if you commit adultery in our church you get four chances to repent according to Matt 18, but if you gossip, you are rejected after the first and second admonition."

He also guarantees his church members this: "No one will say anything bad about you behind your back without severe repurcussions."

He quotes Titus 3:10 which says, "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned."

The post goes on to show the pictures this pastor uses in his gossip sermon. It is worth checking out!

Many years after Princess Charles and Princess Diana's divorce, I still occasionally get into conversations about who was more at fault. I hate these conversations, and try to get out quickly! The lady I board with is in the habit of reading a certain popular women's magazine, with the resultant conversational topics.

Groping for some clarity in ithe midst of this conversation, I finally arrived at some.
"Well", I said, "it is all gossip anyway. If it is true it is gossip, and if it is not true it is slander, either way it is wrong and we shouldn't read it."

In hindsight, that was rather less than tactful. Although I'd told her I didn't read the Women's Weekly she had placed a whole stack of them on a table in my room. They had been there for about two months, long enough to notice that the front covers still contained stories about Princess Diana even though she's been dead for nearly 10 years. Will they never let her rest in peace? Soon after this little conversation, the magazines were gone.

In hindsight, perhaps should have tried extra tact, it did not occur to me for about two weeks that my comments could have been cons dered rude :). People do tell me I'm blunt.

However, the Bible is much blunter about gossip than I am. We commonly over look gossip, or joke about it, but the Bible presents it as serious sin. Yet we all know how often we indulge in it, without even a guilty conscience. Gossip magazines are the least of my trouble. I don't even want to look at them. They make me feel sick and depressed. It is easy to avoid gossip I don't like.

Another example of conversations I don't like is whether or not ___ planned to have their latest baby. People raise all kinds of things like "surely they didn't plan to have them so close together", or "they've only been married a year!", or "they've already got 4 kids". Personally, I'm not interested in whether or not ____ planned baby _____. Any baby is a good baby, in my way of thinking! I find it easy to say "I really don't think it is any of our business".

The everyday conversations where I want to know about what the person is talking about are much harder to choose to exit. Things like why ____ has an alcohol abuse problem, or why ____ (someone we know) got divorced, why a certain boyfriend and girlfriend broke up when they seemed so suited, or why ___ child is so badly behaved are much harder to get out of. I often want to know the answers to those things.

I once listened to a tape series on speech by Greg Bahnson (spelling?). It was excellent. One thing he said was that "if you are not part of the problem, or part of the solution, don't talk about it!". The problem is putting his advice into action!

Do any of you have tips on how to avoid gossip, or change the topic tactfully when gossip comes into the conversation?