How do you handle this situation: Word gets to you that people are saying things – negative things – about another pastor.
You caution the specific source of the gossip about gossip, but the mere fact it came to you means it is widespread.
What do you do? Do you talk to that pastor? Even if you don’t know each other well?
I am a part-time local pastor serving Wesley Chapel United Methodist Church and a participant in the Indiana Conference's Wesleyan ConneXion. I teach business communication at Indiana University in the Kelley School of Business.
I also blog at Luc means light and contribute to The View from Here blog at Next Step Evangelism.
My wife, Lisa, and I have been married 23.5 years. Luc, 8, lives with us. Zach, 22, and JillAnn, 18, are off at college much too soon for my liking.
Contact me at johnmeunier at Gmail.
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
— John Wesley
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My understanding is that gossips are supposed to be promoted in church leadership as a reward for their behavior. It’s somewhere in the Discipline.
I assume that you are talking about someone who shares details about another that are unsupported, and probably less than flattering, and that more often than not makes the person sharing such look the better of the two people?
In the past I have usually let the person know that what they are doing is letting the rest of the community know more about their own character than the one they are spreading “gossip” about.