A Month of Love - Show Love - No Gossip

Yesterday I wrote about involving the children in your ministry in a project to show their love by earning money to buy bunnies for families in need around the world. Today - and each day of February - I want to write about ways to show love in your children's ministry; starting today with one of what I consider the biggest and most important ways to show love . . . commit to absolutely not gossip.

Gossip is insidious. Far too often we do it without even thinking. But gossip is evil and vile. It causes damage and hurts people, deeply. Gossip compromises our ministry to children, families and to the volunteers who serve in our ministry. We absolutely MUST have a zero tolerance for gossip and MUST be people who will NOT gossip; ever.

If we gossip, or allow our ministry to have an atmosphere of gossip, our ministries will be damaged in the following ways - 

• It will destroy trust. How can children, families and volunteers trust us or the others serving in our ministry if they are gossiped about?
• It will damage and wound. Words hurt. And, when people we thought we could trust say things - in particular things we trusted them with - to others, the pain can last for years.
• It has the potential to drive children, families and volunteers away from church. I know people who heard others gossip about them at church and they never returned to church. I have personally been gossiped about by people I trusted and, while it did not drive me away from church, it did lead to me leaving that particular church.
• It prevents us from showing love to others. Jesus said, "34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34, 35) Gossip is absolutely not showing love. When we gossip it does not show others the love Jesus showed to us. When we gossip we are not obeying Jesus.

There are more ways gossip damages our ministries to children, families and volunteers, but just these are enough for us to  make the commitment to be people who do not gossip, ever and to have a zero tolerance for gossip in our ministries. If we are truly serious about having ministries which show the love of Jesus to others, we will NOT gossip. Period.

So, as you think about love, be a person who does not gossip.