Featured Local Churches Avoiding Addressing Gossip

Accountability partners are not only biblical, it is necessary.

Accountability is not just for a time, it is for all times, and requires our discipline and dedication to keep at it. If we stop, we soon go back to our fears and complacency. When this happens, sin that before was of no consequence has now grown big and is knocking on your door. Commitment is essential to making anything that is precious work, from a friendship to marriage to being a member of a church. We must be committed and continual. Commitment brings about hope and growth through sacrifice, as we pour ourselves into it while being fueled by our Lord.

 

If the pastor preached on the evils of gossip!

The alters might be so full, that it would take hours to pray for each person :laugh:

 

Do these numbers come from some sort of tally sheet you keep? Or are you pulling them from somewhere else? A sermon notebook perhaps? Interesting.

 

:1_grouphug:
Then I have 3 that are with me constantly

 

My wife and I were in a church where it was well known that most likely if you wanted to gossip about someone to a church leader then they were going to take you to talk with the person you were talking about. That would only have to happen a few times and gossip would slow down a lot.

In one church I pastored I spoke on the subject of gossip and it drew a lot of attention. One of the church leaders did not like it and started yelling at me. He waited for me after church and it was obvious he wanted to pick a fight. He was exposed as the trouble in the church but the church leaders did nothing. Today the church is steadily declining. They got a pastor who they liked and would listen to them but now they do not like him.

 

And tell me, what do you do when, try as you might, you cannot hear His voice? To whom do you turn?

 

thisnumberdisconnected--obviously your experiences are different than mine.

But I've sat in churches where the membership DID NOT KNOW adultery was a sin. DID NOT KNOW lying is a sin. DID NOT KNOW stealing is a sin.

Why? Because they have uninformed consciences. Now, lots of us grew up in a time where even the rankest sinner DID know right from wrong.

But we now have a couple of generations that WERE NOT taught right from wrong at home. At school, they were taught relativism that told them THEY get to decide what is right and wrong FOR THEM. And then they were won by "friendship evangelism" to come and "be a part of our fellowship" but HAVE NOT BEEN TOLD there is such a thing as sin, hell, repentance, or salvation.

So NO, I'm not talking legalism, more talking basic education in right and wrong. I can "preach Christ" to you all day long as a loving elder brother (and He is), as our best teacher (and He is), or as a model for you to strive to emulate (and you should.)

And none of that will keep your kiester out of hell. The gospel ISN'T that God loves everybody no questions asked.

He DOES call us to repentance.

And if that offends any, so be it.

 

I'm absolutely convinced, with all due respect, Nodak, that there is no way someone does not know adultery, lying and stealing is a sin. Perhaps the words haven't been spoken to them, but they know those things are wrong. They may want to pretend they don't know, but they are lying to everyone including themselves.

Kids and young adults today want to align themselves with a "feel good" theology, no doubt. But they still know, per my comment just before this, what "right" and "wrong" truly is, and no amount of claiming "No one told me!" is sufficient for me to believe they don't know it anyway. There is a basic moral compass in American society that conveys these things to them, whether credited to Christ's teachings or not. They know. They just don't want to be held accountable.

My opinion is, if they claim they don't "know" the things we've named in these two posts are wrong, they need one-on-one discipling, and that can't be done from the pulpit. Nor should it be done from the pulpit. As I said before ...

Let the discipleship/accountability partner teach them "right from wrong," as though they don't already know. Speaking words of discipleship from the pulpit still gives them the opportunity to say, "I must have missed that in service."

Absolutely. And a reminder of what surrender, repentance, faith in action, etc., is all about is good when it comes form the pulpit. But to be certain they are getting the message, the one-on-one relationship between mature Christian and "newbie" is the venue by which it should be conveyed.

The gospel is offensive, regardless. No need to be "in your face" about it from the pulpit when that same person can corrected, edified, and a foundation for him/her in private.

 

As usual I appreciate your point of view. In my opinion the problem with addressing the sin of gossip is the vast majoirty of the congregation practices that sin fairly regularly and it is a sin that is not easily hidden. So the comfortable thing to do is to ignore it as a sin and relabel it as "expressing concern".

 

What a blessed sight that would be in a Baptist church in these the 'teens....that is once I got off my knees and whiped the tears out of my own eyes to see it.

 

Perhaps the difference of opinion I hold with some of you is two fold based on experience.

Never been victim of legalism as some describe.

And I live in an insanely UNCHRISTIANIZED town. By that I mean not just folks unsaved, but generations since anyone in the family darkened the door of a church or opened a Bible.

They don't do the latter as it is considered just another book of fairy tales.

Those circling within so called Christendom would have different experience than us literally among the pagans.

 

Exactly, but since it is a thread condemning the lust of the flesh in over-eating, well...that is something they do and don't/won't preach against because they do it. Therefore only the things they DON'T do and preach against are acceptable.