By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
– Edmund Burke
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Paul condemned gossip in his letters to the churches, but for some reason it is rare to hear a sermon on the evils of gossip.
To prevent gossip, a church, like all other organisations with humans involved, needs to have clear communication lines both from the leadership to the congregation and also from the congregation to the leadership. All the people must understand that poor transmission of communication can lead to the questioning, and it is not always a case of mutiny in the lower decks, but without a clear means of questioning something, a situation can deteriorate into gossip.
Equally a good leader needs to understand that he needs someone who will shout at him “Don’t be so daft!” when he is about to drop a monumental clanger, when only he and his “Executive in charge of stopping stupid ideas” will be embarrassed by what nearly happened.
But far and away the most effective means of stopping gossip is an atmosphere where we can bring our concerns about one another to each other in loving concern, knowing that we will be listened to and that both sides in every disagreement will do their best to reach a reconciliation rather than jump off the deep end assuming the worst about each others’ motives.
I may prepare a fuller post on this topic myself.
Hello, Fred. I’ll look forward to that post.
There are many ways we can reduce the temptation to gossip, and you’ve listed some good ones. Ultimately, it’s a violation of love, and we have to commit ourselves not to do it.
Methinks there are too many rats here in the US. 😦
A lot of nations are drowning….