Here Is Why Gossip Is More Dangerous than You Think

Note: It is this simple: if you know anyone who has “a gossip problem” and they are your friends on social media (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Google+ and Snapchat), just pick up the link to this post and share it often until you are aware that they have read it. Then wash your hands off it and move on.

Gossip

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I have seen it.

I have heard it too.

A guy or a lady comes to me as a leader and as a friend, and the talk that follows is about how discouraged they are because a grown up (and mostly married) “Christian” woman said very nasty stuff about him/her. And they feel bad. Really bad. They feel so bad that they are more inclined to hit and hate the gossip, face her head-on and tell her to go to hell than to love her. But they’re holding their guts about it. (Oh, thank God for that thing called grace.) The victim of the gossip now tells me that they now feel like he/she wants to leave the church/team and go elsewhere or quit ministry altogether; and maybe add a few footnotes to their distress and observations: to call us all Christians in that place/team a bunch of hypocrites. Justified, eh?

Normally, I look at them and tell them that I get it. All this is messed up. Because when you think of grown up women – who supposedly should be practicing Christians, carriers of their own crosses and removers of their own specks in their swollen eyes - wagging their tongues in the name of talking about everyone else and with bad intentions, it is not good. It is messy. Then, to make it worse, these same women expect these young ladies to trust them with their private life details: about work, about relationships, about life etc. etc. That makes it even more complicated. I always wonder why they choose not to do the following: call the concerned party, request audience, and address the issue or request for clarification. Is that so hard? Really?

So the victim and I remain seated, me convincing them to stick in there and pray for an upgrade of “shock-absorbers” from God, and they convincing me that they just hate how grown-up women (supposedly confessors of the work of the cross of Calvary) behave. They even quote 1Thessalonians 4:11 on me (…and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you…) which I always agree with.

I know most gossips think: “Aaah, talk is just talk. It will pass.” But words are powerful. Words are more powerful than a two-edged sword. (Yes please, quote me some Hebrews 4:12, won’t you?) They cut deeper, they erode wider and they disintegrate mercilessly. Words created the world, and they can as well destroy it (James 3:1-12.)

Never take the effect of words – whether good or bad - on people and situations lightly.

So, after sitting down with quite a number of young people who have been affected by gossip, here is how I have found words used in gossip are such a dangerous thing:

1. Gossip breaks the very law that is at the center of Christianity: love your neighbor as you love yourself. Would you like someone to talk bad unverified stuff about you (or those you love) behind your back or to tell people things about you (or those you love) that were to be kept secret and hidden from everyone else? You don’t, right? Then stop gossiping.

2. It makes Christians who are gossips equal to the devil: slanderers and accusers of brethren. Slandering and falsely accusing Christians is the work of the devil: Revelation 12:10 “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.’” Stop taking the devil’s job description for yourself. You’ll end up in hell!

3. It breaks fellowship because people just can’t trust one another. If you read my article on why people really leave teams, gossip is right there in the middle. Christians should be carriers of each other burdens, a people who pray for one another in love, a people who trust in God together for the sake of others, not those who add more weight on others through bad-mouthing. Come on, our own crosses were already heavy enough and we have discarded them at Calvary in order to carry lighter ones. Quote me some verses here too… Note that a leader who is a gossip is a fool (Proverbs 10:18) and that it hinders the passing on of information between two parties that should otherwise agree.

4. Jesus sees gossips in the light of this verse: Matthew 18:6 “…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (These are Jesus’ own words.) They are causing other brethren to sin: to hate, to fall out of love, to walk away from fellowships and to stop serving their God. So yeah, it seems like tying a millstone around the neck and throwing them into the sea is not such a bad idea (Jesus’ idea, not mine.)

And here are verses that say that gossip is terribly sinful (see the bold and underline in each verse):

Romans 1:28-30 (ESV) “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents…”

2 Corinthians 12:20 (ESV) “For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish - that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.”

1Timothy 5:13 (ESV) “Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.”

End note:

If you are going to talk about someone else to another person, let it be with the intention of offering help (prayer, counsel, love, material help etc.) but not spreading malice. If you need help on how to stop gossiping, the help I offered in this post on masturbation applies to you too. And to all those who have been affected by gossip in one way or another, pray that I’ll do a post in the near future titled: So They’ve Gossiped About You, What Next? to help you deal with the aftermath of gossip.

God bless.

Bonface Morris.

Leadership and Mentorship: Why Do People REALLY Leave Teams?

Well, to answer the question above, sincerely, I don’t know. Each case is different and unique at many levels. But I do have an idea and I am sharing it with you below.

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Leaders deal with this issue of quitting members all the time. Imagine a leader in some kind of monologue:

“Phew! Why did so-and-so REALLY leave? Was it my mistake? Was I a bad leader to them? Am I a bad leader? Will my “bad” leadership therefore lead to more and more of these that are remaining to leave too? What if (insert name of a member of the team that TOTALLY got the leader’s back) left too? Oh LORD, I would die… Please just take me HOME already, this is too much…”

And the story goes on and on and on…

When members leave, it is always a source of stress and a season of endless self-scrutiny to the leader.

In my tiny capacity as a leader, I've had quite a number of leaders complaining about people quitting their teams. Of course every leader takes it personally when a member of his/her team leaves:

"Did I do something wrong?"

"Was it the right decision to be made at that time? Am I this unbelievably bad that they can’t trust me to lead them anymore?”

“Can they please (just please, yes, please) drop me an email or a WhatsApp or a text message [sic!] or anything and state the reason/s why they left?”

Some of us have a tendency of becoming temperamental in the heat of the moment and end up yelling at the remaining members of the team: "You can as well leave! I won't hold you back!! So-and-so went because this wasn't their place, they weren't important to our mission!!"

And as the matter becomes frothy - thanks to pride - we end up not apologizing for the unintended yelling. As a result, more people leave. And the cycle continues: it adapts an auto-repeat status which in due course leaves the leader running solo. Pride is such an evil master!

And those who remain, albeit unwillingly, keep on asking themselves, "So someone existed on our team who was not important to its mission?" And sarcastically, the next time the team meets, the leader, while still squirming and soaking in the bad blood of yester days, would unknowingly answer back and say, "Yeah, I feel the Lord is taking away the weight that was weighing us down."

But realistically speaking, the rest of the team would inherently figure out it, shake their heads in private and conclude that it has never occurred to them that they could have had on their team (or if you please, the Lord would allow on their team) someone who was not supposed to be there. Life is not a game of betting and chances. That person served a purpose, and because they are now gone, they’ll be missed. It may be dumb, but it’s still a purpose.

“On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.” (1 Corinthians 12:22, NIV)

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So after weighing in on the kind of relationships that are birthed between the leader and the remaining members of the team after other members have left (like the one above), I came up with a few things that cause people to leave teams. This isn’t conclusive, but it is a good place begin.  

People leave teams because of a few things:

1.    Bad or poor leadership

Poor leadership would mean anything from a leader that doesn’t know how to lead and handle people to one who keeps on forgetting what he/she should be doing as a leader in the first place. I am a victim of both quite a number of times (so help me LORD).

Here is the reality;

a)    When a leader leaves his/her team feeling eroded instead of growing up and feeling burnout instead of refreshed, it is because the leader has neglected their duty of adding value into the team’s life. Most growth-oriented people will not hesitate to leave if left in this position for sometime.

b)    When the leader is not valuing an individual’s input to the team and this member feels that there might be another [better] place where their input may be felt and appreciated, they’ll leave. Leaders that are so mean with words of affirmation or praise will always face this reality in the long run.

c)    An arrogant leader who doesn't value team work and sees no need to seek for feedback from the team while making important team decisions will always lose people. Always. People want openness, so if they are not getting it, they won’t stick around for long.

d)    Team members will always quit a team where the leader is abusive and divisive either in the use of power or in the execution of rights.

A bad leader is abusive and divisive either in the use of power or in the execution of rights.

e)    Vision hungry team members will leave a team where the leader lacks a straightforward vision for the team and where the leader provides no definite strategies towards running the team’s mission (if present). A team that keeps moving in circles can’t survive the steam of an ever-changing sub-culture.

f)     When the team’s vision no longer serves to help team members reach and fulfill their life goals as far as service is concerned, members will lack zeal and they’ll drop away.

g)    Members of a team whose strength is action (the desire and ability to act on things and execute plans without delay) will always feel discontented with a leader who refuses or eternally delays to take action to stop things or issues that are threatening the team's ethics and unity i.e. gossip, the welfare of members etc.

h)    A leader who refuses to take responsibility for his/her own failures (like the one I gave in the example above) but either keeps blaming innocent members for his/her own failures or pretends that nothing is wrong when everything is falling apart will lose as many members as there are sands on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Just the other week, Andy Stanley (one leader whom I greatly admire and respect) had to give an apology for a statement he made about small churches. He owned his mistake, and it helped him gain our trust again.

i)     When the leader is a coward who cannot take risks to move the team into a better place or to new ground, he/she loses the trust of the members. No one wants to trust someone who is only comfortable with where they are and does not show signs of moving forward.

2.    Carnality or immaturity

A carnal person is jumpy. Spiritual toddlers are never settled in the same place. They will always move out regardless of the type of leadership in a place (whether good or bad). These people are easily persuaded by the devil to leave teams and it therefore becomes a spiritual battle for the leader. Leaders shouldn’t blame themselves for people who refuse to grow, yet threaten to leave.

3.    The devil is at work

Remember what he did to Judas Iscariot in Jesus' day? Jesus was a great leader, but Satan convinced one of the closest members in His team (Judas) to sell lies about what Jesus’ ministry was all about. Judas left, Jesus suffered rejection (which is very common amongst leaders today), Jesus’ team got divided and shriveled for a while and probably everyone thought, “Aaah, this is done! He was just like every other useless leader we see!!” But thank God that, later, Judas’ lies were exposed, Jesus’ reputation as a leader remained intact and His team came back with a bang! With the intervention of God, Satan’s lies will always be exposed and God’s work will go on.

Matthew 16:18 (KJV) “…and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Gossip is one of the major sources of division/s and lack of trust in a team.

The devil may also cause influential members of a team to spread stale, unverified, inappropriate and [sometimes] dirty rumors/gossip about the leader or about each other that will end up harming the team's spirit of unity and purpose. This will cause the bond of unity between the leader and the rest of the team members to weaken, making many members to leave, or causing divisions within the team. It is all the devil’s work.

His work can also step in further and cause members of a team to start undermining the leader’s ability to lead. They may do this openly or in public when al the team members are present. Eventually, they may end up taking over the leadership or unlawfully expelling the leader out of the team.

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You now realize that not all people leave teams for the same reasons. Some are genuine, while others are diabolic. The leader needs to sit down, analyze himself/herself and those under him/her and find out the causes of the vanishing team members.

Any team member is justified to leave a team because of the reasons in Point Number 1 above. Anyone who is haphazard in decision-making won't stay in such a team. Also, why stick with a team which isn't going anywhere and one which lacks a sense of direction? But for the second and third reasons above, the leader needs to understand that he's facing a spiritual battle and that "...we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12, ESV) and therefore, the leader should pick up their armor and fight the good fight of faith and allow God to win the war for him.

Bonface Morris.