Gossiping the Gospel

As a student at The Bernard Gilpin Society in Durham in 1965 we used to have a Friday evening session led by the Archdeacon of Auckland.

I remember one evening in particular when the Archdeacon spoke at length about the role of the Priest in sharing the Good News of the Gospel, in describing this priestly work he extended an interesting metaphor which he called 'gossiping the Gospel'.

This concept was further developed when considering the trade routes between the Middle East, The West Coast of Ireland and the English Channel, the idea of the sailors discussing and describing this new religion that had appeared and was spreading, the story of a Man raised from the dead and an ex Pharisee who had converted and begun to spread the message around the ports in the Mediterranean.

The emphasis on 'gossiping' of course carries with it the risk of dismissing it all as 'old wives tales', making a subtle distinction between truth and fiction.

Yet the essence of  the story is what makes it radical, what makes it good news because it offers freedom to slaves, it enfranchises societies' poorest, in the words of The Magnificat it has:

'put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble and meek

filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty

In this way it becomes everyones story and it is shared with eagerness and enthusiasm, 'Have you heard?', 'Do you know?' 

In this way the gossiping becomes the essential mission of the whole family of Christians across the world, individual to individual, group to group, people to people, nation to nation.

For it to be shared it needs to be owned and so my individual story comes first:

Who am I? What is my experience of the Divine? How would I describe my spirituality? What are my hopes for my life? What are my dreams?

The story of the parish and its people as a place, a parish, a wider community might follow:

What is our history? What is our herstory? Here both positives and negatives must be owned and rolled out. This is how we have told our story historically our shared/joint hopes and aspirations. Arts, Crafts, Music. Visitors. Church growth.

The third story is where we are now as a society, socially and economically:

What is happening to church life nationally? What is happening to church life ecumenically? How do people earn a living? Is the Churches Mission widely owned or owned only narrowly? 

Is it shallow rooted? How do we balance survival with the need for growth? Can we identify and talk about our strengths as a community? Our weaknesses?

This strategy can be taken forward if each member takes a share in the telling of the story.

This has been described as ‘Gossiping the Gospel’ to explain the spread of the Gospel around the Mediterranean and across the sea routes to Ireland and the UK.

A modern expression of gossiping the gospel in the 21st Century is that it should go viral. 

Effectively reversing the contemporary decline in both Church life and in Church membership it is an everyman’s/everywoman’s way of discipleship.