When is it Gossip?
So apparently, 10,000 Southern Baptists walked into a convention center, and it wasn't the setup to a joke. It was the setup to cancel everything fun in my life.
I'm talking about the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, where they decided to target—and I quote—"pornography, sports betting, and same-sex marriage, as well as willful childlessness." Now, I get the first one. I understand the marriage thing. But sports betting? Really? You're coming for my FanDuel account?
And "willful childlessness"? What's next, are they going to start monitoring who's using birth control? Are they going to have a fertility committee? "Excuse me, Brother Johnson, we noticed you only have two kids. Care to explain?"
The Great Fantasy Football Controversy
Here's where it gets personal. I'm sitting there listening to this news, and all I can think about is my church fantasy football league. Because apparently, according to these Southern Baptist overlords, I can't have a prize at the end of the season. No money involved. Just pure, competitive sadness.
You know what happens when you play fantasy football with no money on the line? People quit. They just stop. Week 6 rolls around, their team is 1-5, and they're like, "Well, I'm done setting my lineup." Meanwhile, you're stuck with some guy who's been starting players on bye weeks for the last month because he checked out mentally sometime around Halloween.
I've tried those church leagues with no money. It's like watching paint dry, except the paint is more exciting because at least it's making progress. These people will draft a team, lose three games, and then disappear faster than the church donuts after Sunday service.
"Put ten dollars on it for a full season, guys. Come on." But no, apparently that's gambling now. That's the devil's work. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us we can't flip coins to see who pays for lunch because that's "games of chance."
Welcome to Oklahoma, Where Everything Fun Is Illegal
Living in Oklahoma, this hits different. We finally got some legal gambling options—you can play FanDuel, you can do prop betting on sites like PrizePicks. You pick two or three players, choose over or under on their stats, and if you're right, your five dollars can multiply.
But here's the thing about these bets: they're really hard to win. Somebody's always going to get hurt. Somebody's going to have a bad game. Somebody's going to get in foul trouble. Just the other day, some guy placed a seven-game parlay and got all the way to the Thunder game. He was projected to win $238,000 off a ten-dollar bet. The Thunder lost with three seconds left on the clock.
That's not gambling addiction—that's just Oklahoma sports breaking your heart in the most expensive way possible.
The Baseball Betting Disaster
I'll be honest with you: I used to bet on baseball, and it was the most frustrating experience of my life. Think about it—the best players in the league are batting .300. That means they fail seven out of ten times. And these are the good players.
You'll bet on a team for a doubleheader, thinking, "They're going to win today." They lose the first game, then they win the second game 10-0, and you're sitting there like, "What did you not just do that the first game when I had money on it?"
Baseball betting taught me that sports betting is just paying money to be disappointed in new and creative ways. It's like marriage, but with worse odds.
The Gossip Problem (AKA The Real Issue)
But here's the thing that really got me thinking. While the Southern Baptist Convention is worried about my five-dollar fantasy football bets, they're completely missing the real problem in our churches: gossip.
Our pastor Michael preached on gossip recently, and honestly, it was one of his best sermons. Not because he wasn't preaching at me for once—though that was refreshing—but because he hit on something that actually matters.
You know what gossip is? It's talking about someone else's issues with no intent to help them or solve the problem. Simple as that. And churches are absolutely terrible about this.
The Prayer Request Loophole
Here's how gossip works in church: "Hey, we need to pray for so-and-so because they're really struggling. They got drunk last week, and they're making poor decisions, and their marriage is falling apart, and did you hear about what happened at their job?"
And everyone's like, "Oh yes, let's pray for them." But really, we just want the details. We want to know what happened. We want to be in the know.
I used to make fun of people who gave "unspoken prayer requests." Like, if you're not going to tell me what's wrong, how am I supposed to pray for you? I need the gossip—I mean, the details—to properly intercede with the Lord.
But now I get it. "Please pray for my friend Ben. He's dealing with some health issues." That's it. That's all you need to say. You don't need to go into his entire medical history and how he's not taking care of himself and how his wife is frustrated and how their kids are acting out because of the stress at home.
The Meme That Explained Everything
There was this meme someone at our church shared: a picture of church people at lunch after a sermon on gossip, and everyone's just sitting there in complete silence. Not talking. Because everything we usually talk about is about other people.
That hit me hard. Like, what can we actually talk about? News? That's mostly gossip. Sports talk radio? That's definitely gossip. "Where's Aaron Rodgers going to play next season? The Steelers? The Vikings? He's feeling this way about this team." That's all just hearsay.
Even when journalists have two sources to verify a story, those sources could be getting their information from the same person. It's like a game of telephone, except the telephone is on a podcast and everyone's pretending it's news.
The Accountability Trap
The worst part is when we dress up gossip as accountability or spiritual concern. "I'm going to our pastor because I need to know how to handle this situation with so-and-so."
But here's what really happened: I just told the pastor something they didn't know about someone else, and now they're in a weird position. They can't unknow what I told them, but they also can't act on it without revealing that I was the source.
It's like gossip with a theological degree.
Why Gossip Feels So Good (Science!)
I actually looked this up because I was curious. Turns out gossip releases dopamine and oxytocin in your brain. Dopamine is the reward chemical, and oxytocin is the bonding hormone. So when you gossip, you literally get high from it, and you feel closer to the person you're gossiping with.
Meanwhile, if you're the person being gossiped about, your body releases cortisol—the stress hormone. So gossip is basically a drug that makes the gossipers feel good and the gossipee feel terrible.
It's like a social pyramid scheme, except instead of essential oils, we're dealing essential information.
The Reality TV Connection
This explains why reality TV is so popular. Love Island, Big Brother, The Bachelor—they're all just professionally produced gossip. "What did JoJo say about so-and-so? I gotta watch this episode to find out."
These shows take a full day's worth of footage and edit it down to one hour, specifically choosing the most dramatic moments. You don't see the thirty minutes before the argument where everyone was getting along fine. You just see the conflict.
It's gossip with a production budget.
The Awkward Truth About My Personal Life
Since we're talking about gossip and being above reproach, I should probably stop telling people I've slept in another woman's bed.
Here's the context: Growing up, I hung out at our pastor's house a lot. Their daughter Megan had an older sister, and I was friends with the sister's boyfriend. One night, I ended up sleeping in the sister's bed because of some complicated living room situation.
The next morning, I got woken up by her boyfriend tapping on the window to give her a good morning kiss before work. I opened the window, and he was just like, "Oh, hey." Zero concern. Zero jealousy. Because everyone knew there was absolutely nothing inappropriate happening.
But I still tell people, "Yeah, I slept in her bed," and just let them draw their own conclusions. It's a great icebreaker, but probably not the best example of being above reproach.
Our pastor's wife was here a couple weeks ago and heard me tell this story. She was like, "You did what now?"
Yeah, maybe I should stop leading with that story at church potlucks.
How to Shut Down Gossip (The Awkward Edition)
The sermon gave some practical advice on how to stop gossip in its tracks. Here are the methods:
The Direct Approach: "Should I go talk to this person about what you just told me?" This makes people realize they're gossiping real quick.
The Redirect: "I'm not part of this. I don't need to hear this."
The Spiritual Pivot: "This sounds like something we should just pray about."
I prefer the direct approach because I don't mind making things awkward. But if you're more polite than me (which isn't hard), the redirect works pretty well.
The Real Problem With Church Culture
Here's what I think is really happening. We're so focused on external sins—sports betting, drinking, entertainment choices—that we're ignoring the relational sins that are actually destroying our communities.
Gossip breaks down trust. It destroys relationships. It makes people feel like they can't be vulnerable or honest because someone's going to turn their struggles into prayer request gossip.
I've lost a good friend recently because of this exact issue. Not because of gambling or drinking or any of the things the Southern Baptist Convention is worried about. Because of gossip and broken trust.
Moving Forward (Without My FanDuel Account, Apparently)
So what's the solution? How do we shift from gossip to grace?
First, we need to be more direct with people. Most gossip starts because we're avoiding a conversation we should have and instead having conversations we shouldn't have. If someone does something that bothers you, talk to them about it. Not in the heat of the moment, but a few days later when emotions have cooled down.
Second, we need to challenge our church leaders to create environments for restoration instead of condemnation. People should feel safe to share their struggles without worrying about it becoming the subject of next week's prayer requests.
Third, we need to remember that gossip dies when it doesn't have an audience. Stop putting wood on the fire. When someone starts gossiping to you, shut it down.
The Irony of It All
Here's the funny thing about the Southern Baptist Convention targeting sports betting: they're probably missing the real addiction in their churches. The people who are most vocal about banning certain behaviors are often the ones struggling with them.
As our pastor Michael said, a friend once told him, "I like it when you preach because I always know what you're struggling with." Michael preached on gossip, so apparently, he's struggling with gossip.
Which means the Southern Baptist Convention is struggling with sports betting, pornography, same-sex marriage, and willful childlessness. That's quite a list for 10,000 people to tackle in one weekend.
The Bottom Line
The church isn't supposed to be a rumor mill. It's supposed to be a hospital. And healing starts when we speak life into people instead of whispering about them in hallways.
So while the Southern Baptist Convention is worried about my ten-dollar fantasy football league, maybe they should focus on the fact that their people can't have a conversation without it turning into gossip about someone who isn't there to defend themselves.
But hey, at least we can still gossip about this podcast to our friends. That's not gossip—that's marketing.
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