Creating Good Gossip

Henry Kissinger was a master at the press leak. He often spoke to reporters with the stipulation that they cite only “sources close to the White House.” He would tell them about some plan the Nixon administration was considering, wait for them to report it, and then gauge the support of the American people before making a final decision and an official announcement. Kissinger made the grapevine work for the president, rather than against him.

Like it our not, the grapevine is part of leadership and church life. If Christians can’t drink, smoke, or chew, then we’ll just talk about those who do (and some who don’t). The question is, can we use fairly the human tendency to talk too much for the benefit of the church?

Erwin McManus says his church had a huge gossip problem ten years ago, but no longer. “We created an environment where people felt powerless to dissent,” he says. “Most church business we kept secret among the top leaders. Gossip was an ungodly response to powerlessness.” McManus’s Los Angeles church, now named Mosaic, was a growing, multi-cultural congregation. As in most congregations, people like to talk. Sometimes that talk turned to the leadership. At one point, it was not uncommon for people to call for prayer meetings where there was little praying, but much discussion about what the pastors were up to.

That’s when McManus and the leaders realized they shared responsibility in creating the problem. “We decided if information was going to be distributed freely, we want to be the ones to distribute it. So now we share widely whatever is appropriate. We try to create an environment where people can be heard.”

You can make the grapevine work for you, McManus found. “If people are informed and empowered, then when they hear gossip, they will stop it, because they know it’s not true.”

And H.B. London and Neil Wiseman agree. In their book, Becoming Your Favorite Church (Regal, 2002), these pastors concede that people are going to gossip: “Informers often use loose talk to put themselves in the spotlight. In most grapevine discussions, accuracy is compromised simply because the talker seldom knows all the facts.”

The authors reason, if people are going to gossip, why not give them something good to gossip about? They advocate “Healthy Talk” as one of seven habits of highly effective leaders:

“Begin to transform the grapevine into a positive forum by asking why church people talk so much. They may be intensely interested but lack information; therefore, they converse to find out if others know more than they do. If this idea has validity, why not provide talkers with more information as a starting point for using the grapevine to bless the church? For example, one recreational talker questions leaders in different settings and at different times; then like a private investigator, he adds up the details and becomes the resident informant who spreads the story. When you see this pattern, give the self-appointed investigator the information you want known. Then, let him talk.”

“Why not think of ways to make your church’s grapevine useful? Why not put significant facts on the grapevine? It is wonderful fun to tell a positive story to a talker and then wait to see how long it takes the information to get back to you and to hear what embellishments have been attached along the way. Sometimes the resident talker forgets who told her the story and repeats it to the originator. Sometimes the tale comes back in hours, but it almost always comes back within a few days.”

“Since people are bound to talk, why not give them something positive to discuss? Putting accurate messages on the grapevine is easier than duplicating them on a copy machine, recording them on someone’s answering machine, or using e-mail.”

So, our question is how do you use the grapevine in a positive way?

As we prepare an issue of Leadership on ethics and integrity, we would appreciate your input. Tell us your story of gossip gone good.