Has anyone actually talked to her about it in a gentle but direct conversation? It sounds like no one is willing to actually address it, and that needs to happen to see any change. There's a good chance she has no idea how she's coming off to other people, or realizing that her actions are harmful.

In my experience, people who gossip a lot usually have some deep sadness or insecurity that they like to cover by talking about other people. Maybe by befriending her, you can help her through that. And if she starts gossiping, just gently stop her by saying you don't want to discuss other people and then ask her about her day, change the topic, etc.

I would leave the church but would absolutely make your complaints about this woman loud and clear. That no one or several of you have spoken up after all of this time is sad. Get a backbone.

If you cannot find peace and love in this house of worship, then find one where you can. A church isn't about the real estate.....it's the people. I wish you well in this, I can only guess how disturbing it all is. You deserve better, chi88.

I have no experience with religious groups but I would have walked away from any group with such recurring petty unpleasantness. If you're the kind of person who wants your church group experience to be personally fulfilling, it would seem clear that this one doesn't offer what you're looking for because of the toxic personalities involved.

The entire community and church are virtually being held hostage by one old biddie! Good grief the people need to stand up to her and tell her to curtail her gossip or she will not be welcome. I guarantee you she will not change on her own, no one has the um strength to take up for the good people, or to stand up to the one person that is the problem. How does that make sense? Multiple members have left! Some one better grow a pair before there is no church. If y'all are that chicken then write a letter and get it to her anonymously. Keep doing it till she catches on. But personally I think it needs to be addressed as a group and presented as an ultimatum, stop the gossip or leave, this is a church gossip is not to be condoned.

Perhaps you can enlist the minister and his wife to do an ongoing program about the destructive nature of gossip. Or get in a rabbi as a guest for recurring lessons. I know few people who can truly refrain from talking about others (it's something we strive for), but it is a serious violation of Jewish law to gossip, and probably there in the Christian version, too.

Another thing you can do, if it's really that bad, is get a group of your more strong minded members together to become a retraining committee. It's not a nice thing to do, and requires everyone to commit fully to it, plus it requires living through the backlash. If you can get a good sized group, however, like seven people from different families, to agree to it, it can work. First you have a neutral ground meeting with the offender, and include some of the other gossipers and other church members so as not to single one out. Neutral ground so it doesn't become a power play. If there's a park nearby, that's a good one. No confining walls or doors. But even the fellowship hall, if no one else is around, could work if it's big and open enough that it's easy to not feel cornered and easy to leave. So, start with the sit down, and discuss how damaging gossip is and how it's making people feel like they have to leave the community. How you need to all stick together and change things to be better representatives of your religion and way of life, etc. Then EVERY time any of the people in the group that met, from both sides, starts to gossip, everyone must commit to firmly and at full volume -- no whispers -- say, "We've committed ourselves not to gossip. I can't hear this," and change the subject.

Setting it up as a committee, in which the gossipers are welcomed as participants, makes them part of the solution and helps keep the group together, rather than factionated. Someone who is friendly with the chief gossipers can commiserate with how intrusive the new agenda is, "but we need to do this for the good of the church."

It takes something radical to change a culture, and the gossip has been the norm for far too long to get rid of it without confronting it.

I think it's time the minister starts getting a backbone and directs his sermons in the that direction. I just became aware of a sitution in our church. Two of the younger members are being unkind to our new family minister's wife. Now I know the why of some of the senior minister sermons. I don't know if he is getting through to them but it hasn't hurt me and all others members to hear some good preaching.

I would have a talk with the pastor, ask him or her to focus a sermon about how we should treat our neighbors and how hurtful gossip can be. If after the sermon she doesn't take the hint or it continues to be a problem, have the pastor talk to her in private about it.

Sorry jkayd, I didn't read your post...so I guess in some respects I agree with you!

You all have given great advice, I think there are a lot of good ideas here the OP can follow. I tend to be a more direct person when dealing with these kinds of issues, however. In my experience, those who trade in vicious gossip are not likely to alter their behavior in response to general messages stated to the group as a whole. A sermon on the destructiveness of gossip is likely to fly right over this person's head as not being applicable to her. These people do not pick up on subtleties; if they do, they ignore the message.

Gossip really is the quintessential passive aggressive behavior. The best way to deal with passive aggressive people is to be direct with them. They don't like confrontation, which is why they use the P-A behavior in the first place. I would pull this woman aside and inform her as plainly and kindly as possible, that you will not tolerate her gossiping, and inform her of how it has eroded the membership and spiritual environment of the church. You don't need to bring other people's names into the conversation, but you should give specific examples of when her gossip involved you, and make her very uncomfortable. Make her face her own words. For example, "I understood you had some interest in where I received the funds to purchase a new car. Can you tell me why that information pertains to you?" or whatever the subject of the gossip is. You need to treat her gossip/passive-agression as what it really is: hostility.

She may amp up her gossip of you for a while, but I guarantee when she learns how un-fun it is to continually be confronted with her behavior, she will move on.

I agree with many of the points here and suggestions. I have an additional one that might help alongside the other methods. Give this lady a job. One that is hands on, and takes a lot of time. Maybe an outreach at the local hospital.

In my experience when people are busy helping others (and I mean really busy with time consuming, complex tasks) they are less apt to fill up time with gossip.

If she is kept busy, and has to face her words, and has a group of people who will actively work to not be an audience to gossip, you might find that she is a nicer person, faces up to what she has been doing, and changes.

I can't think of a more heartwarming (but difficult) project for a church flock than to change, forgive, and welcome back a stray errant member.

p-log, I hope you're not serious in suggesting that one should expect to see any religion's teachings strictly practiced by its followers. That pretense is (to me) perhaps the most common hypocrisy to be found.

This lady will not take hints. It has to be direct, and as a group you need to select the phrase you will each use when she starts to gossip with you as a group or individually. I am not a diplomat, but something needs to be repeated and repeated, whatever you choose to say. A quick short sentence will do, over and over. "Let's not gossip about our friends." Or whatever.

Atomic you are so right, it IS passive aggressive! While reading your post, it reminded me of a situation we had this past spring. We have a woman who along with a couple of others is an original owner. She felt it was her place to not only make sure everyone was up on the latest happenings (ie gossip) but every time we've had a get together, a consultation or even work taking place in our back yard she's found a way to come over to find out what's going on, who is with us and so on. We have large yards but no fences so it was easy for her to do. Earlier this year while having a shed installed, she waited for me to go inside the house and then came to ask the workers questions and complain about our plans. I was so annoyed, I called her and confronted her exactly how you describe; to our relief, she has never done it again.

We have a similar drama in the neighborhood and ironically it's the pastor's wife here too. I did confront my next door neighbor and asked that she not gossip (I called it what it was) about the other neighbors to me, it made me feel very uncomfortable. She had her panties in a wad for awhile and didn't speak to me at all, but got over it. She doesn't gossip in front of me anymore, just with the pastor's wife.

Some of you are offering up some really detailed, complicated ways to handle a gossipy person. I'm more like Jay - just tell this gossip that you're not interested in talking badly about other people. Talk to her, but when the topic of negatively talking about someone comes up, just stop her.

I've made it clear at work that I'm not going to engage in gossiping about my co-workers. That's not what I'm being paid to do. Fortunately I'm left out of the gossipy conversations. I prefer it that way.

Just tell this church gossip to stop. It's not that hard to do.

Confrontation is hard for a lot of people. I don't mind confrontation when it comes to business issues, but with something on a personal level, I have to be annoyed or angry.

My MIL is a mean-spirited gossip. And I tried all the lines on her - "If so and so wanted me to know that, then they can call me and tell me", "I'm not interested in negative comments about so-and-so", walking out of a room when she is talking, taking my food and leaving the table when she is gossiping. My solution, which won't work for you (I don't think) is that I no longer see her and haven't for over 5 years. What I realized long ago is that if she is gossiping to me about people, then she is gossiping About me to people. Something which I will not tolerate so by not speaking to her, she has no ammunition with which to gossip about me.

People gossip to feel important, they gossip because they are so ill-informed about the world or life around` them that they` gossip in order to have a conversation.

I am nonconfrontational. I would find another house of worship and then tell my current pastor exactly why I am leaving his church.

Good for you, blfenton. You didn't lose a mother in law, you gained happiness and peace of mind. What you did must have taken courage.

Allow me to borrow some of your words to edit them to make a comment for me:

"because they are so ill-informed about the world or life around` them"...and are often too stupid to realize how little they grasp about that world around them.... "that they gossip in order to have a conversation".

Not quite sure how to read this. People don't like this person, don't like the pastor's wife and talk about them a lot. That's gossip in any real definition of the word. Coming to this group to talk about gossips is sort of preaching to the choir! LOL People as a whole gossip all the time. Many-most people in this forum gossip and often. That's also a fact. But it seems to me that one person's conversation is another person's gossip.

As for the one old person being singled out, I think I'd like to know more before judging (gossiping about???) her. Is she alone? Widowed? Any friends or family? No mention of this so I don't know. Perhaps it's just her way to get some interpersonal action that she might just crave. Maybe that's not the case, but if it is the case then it would be sad if a place of purported caring and love would not help in some way with her needs. Since you put it that she "jumped on (you)" from the start, you haven't liked her from the start. I wasn't too crazy about the "Welcome Wagon" and their pushiness when I moved into the neighborhood. Many people consider that "neighborly". I can't help but wonder if she thought she found someone to be a friend and was maybe lead on in some ways. The more you talked and didn't say anything about the topics, she COULD have just thought that's what you wanted.

If you're not happy there you essentially have three choices. Put up with it, try to do something about it or leave. If it bothers you that much then it'd be against your interests to just put up with it.

I'm also confused with what the minister's wife not wanting people in the house or the condition of the house when they left had to do with the gossip problem? I read the post several times and I just don't understand the point. Perhaps the wife didn't like people critiquing her and maybe that caused them to leave? Too much missing information. I will say that if you don't know the problem, or worse, misdiagnose the problem, it's tough to impossible to find a solution.

The only person that you have control of is yourself. If you've tried everything you can think of to stop the gossip and nothing has worked, you will either have to just stop worrying about what they are doing or you will do as so many others did from your church, that is to find a new church.

One thing that you could try that may help nip the gossiping in the bud is that every time the gossips start to talk about someone, put a positive spin of it and try and say glowing and positive things about the person they are talking about. "Oh my goodness, 'Mary' is such a sweetheart, I just love her". Or whatever, try and have some ammo ready.

I really hate gossipers, and I've been a member of this board for over 15 years. I would not classify the people on this board as "gossipers", Cynic. We are engaging in conversations. As to the above mentioned problem, I agree with whomever said to get a backbone. This needs to be addressed in a forthright manner. She needs to be addressed by one person in authority, be it the Pastor or some committee head or whatever. Gossip in small churches is the reason I avoid them.

By your account, most of the trouble is rooted in one woman and she leaves each winter. Its time to meet this problem head on and do not waver. Take the matter up with the Deacons during their business meetings. If the church leaders agree this person is causing irrepairable harm, then she can be removed from the church's membership and asked to stay away. Time her dismissal shortly before she leaves for the winter and do not allow her return next year. it may require an official restraining order to enforce, but with a restraining order, she can be arrested if she does not comply.

I have been a member of a congregation that had to ask a congregant not to return. It was necessary because she was highly disruptive and disrespectful during services (basically bringing them to a halt with her antics, and upsetting everybody) and discussing it with her, and even assigning minders didn't help, but it was also really awful, heartwrenching, and desperately sad. One doesn't wish to exclude people from the community. It's not a tactic I would recommend anywhere short of desperation.

I like Arkansas_girl's suggestion.