It comes every year in the United Methodist Church. Each February through the spring is a special season that brings much anxiety to churches, communities and pastors and it's not fasting or eating fish on Fridays during Lent. Rather it is appointment season. This is a time when the Bishop and Cabinet prayerfully consider how to place pastors in the churches that need them because of retirements, medical leaves, other opportunities, personal crises, etc.
And the North Indiana United Methodist rumor mill begins.
Pastors and congregations alike begin speculating who's moving, who's staying, who's coming, who's going. I hear it every year. And I'm asked every year by colleagues and parishoners if I'm going or staying. I hear about opportunities and the domino effect they create. And by the time the appointment season is over (around the first of June at our Annual Conference) most of us have been affected by the rumors, that may or may not have included us.
It's not healthy. Rumoring never is. Rumors are gossip in disquise. It's supposed to be about passing along "important need-to-know" information, but it's not really. It's gossip and even if there is an ounce of truth in it, it's still misinformation and it shouldn't be passed around.
Moses instructed the Israelites, "Don't pass on malicious gossip."(Exodus 23:1, The Message) Read that carefully. In that time, God was attempting to establish a community of trust where there wasn't one. They hadn't much of a sense of community at all. Their commonaliies were their heritage, Jacob's family or Israel as God renamed him, and their vocation, slaves. Beyond that they weren't much of a community. A way to develop a sense of community was to develop trust. And gossip destroys it.
The same holds true today. The church is to be about strengthening and developing a community of trust, where instead of talking behind someones back we have each other's back.
"A gadabout gossip can't be trusted with a secret, but someone of integrity won't violate a confidence." (Proverbs 11:13, The Message) If we truly love God and seek to live God's way, then our job is to hold each other up, stop gossip in it's tracks and develop a community of trust that makes us and God proud.
It's what the world is seeking, a bit of heaven on earth.
I got your back!
Peace ><>
PC
4 comments:
Unfortunately I fall in the the web of gossip at times in my life. All it takes is a juicy bit of 'soap opera' moment and I am hooked. Afterward in a quiet moment, maybe days later I realize that gossip does not do anyone good. It will destroy relationships that took years to build up in mere seconds. I pray daily for God's strengh to stay away from this sin.
I remember as a child and teenager those few months that would change the course of our lives. I'll be praying for you and the girls to make it through this appointment season, and that God will take you or leave you where you are supposed to be. And if it's closer to me, all the better :)
BTW,
Not planning on moving. Just talkin' about the gossip that happens during this time.
Just to make it clear.
PC
time spent in prayer is far more productive than gossip, and the answers you get are really accurate
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