3 Ways to Beat Negativity and Slander in Your Friend Group

Photo by Gonzalo Baeza

I had an incredible house in college.

The dingy old "Sheila House" was everything I needed—dirt cheap rent, an acceptable house (one that wouldn't fall over), and a group of awesome roommates. It was perfect. We stuffed 8 guys into that place.

Only 4 were on the lease. Don't tell the landlord.

While we had some great times, we also had the same struggles as any house full of college kids does—like weird situations with bills, confusion over cleaning responsibilities, or misunderstandings that turn into groups of frustrated roommates...


I've lived in more than a few houses. And I've talked to a lot of other people from a lot of other houses. And here's something I've found out:

Roommates tend to struggle with negativity.

The Struggle of Slander

The most common gateway to negativity is slander.

What is slander? Well, let me give you some examples. Glad you're so curious today.

Think about the last time you said:

• So-and-so is just so annoying when he does this thing.
• She never shuts up about her boyfriend.
• He's just so freaking selfish. He never thinks about anyone but himself.
• [Insert comically demeaning impression of goofy friend here]

Those things could be considered slander.

Here's the thing—those kinds of ideas are infectious. When you hear them, they spread to you. When you say them, they spread to your friends. Take a minute to remember the last time you heard someone talking about someone else.

"John is a selfish jerk."

I'm willing to bet your mind automatically took on that person's idea, at least partially. And the next time you looked at the person being talked about, you thought, "Man, I guess John really is selfish." And your view of him was damaged because of it.

Slander is Destructive

We are all social learners. We all learn from other people. We can very quickly and easily change a friend's perception of other people if we start talking about them.

I don't think I need to explain to you how this can damage interpersonal relationships between friends, roommates, or families. I think we all know full well it's true. Because we've all experienced pain or isolation because of it.

Slander can be extremely damaging to:

• your ministry
• your friendships
• your spiritual community (you need this to be healthy)
• your friends themselves

Here's why it messes all these things up. When we talk bad about someone to someone else, we're disagreeing with the "Original Design" of that person—the plan God has had for that person from the beginning.

We're dooming them to be less than they were created to be in our own minds.

And that's sad. Especially when I look back and see the damage it's caused in my own life.

I have a long, colored history of participating in negativity. I've soured a friend's thoughts about another friend. I've joined in disparaging conversation about someone else that lead to a strained house community. I've even caused one of my roommates to stop trusting one of my other roommates.

And I want to tell you from experience—It's not worth it.

I believe slander is a tool used by Satan to destroy healthy community and isolate us.

3 Ways to Fight Negativity and Promote Community in Your House

If I want community in my house, I've found that I have to make a conscious effort to notice and fight slander and negativity when they pop up.

Here are three ways to do this:

1. Challenge what you hear about other people. When someone says something bad about another person, you normally believe it without questioning it. Then, you hear that negative echo in your head every time you're with them. I talked about slander to a friend recently...and she had realized that none of her bad thoughts even originated from her own mind. They were all from hearing other people talk about someone. She also realized they weren't even true. When you hear something about someone, ask yourself, "Do I think this is true? Or do my friends just think this is true?"

2. Open up your life. If you live in a house, be inclusive. Letting people in on your plans will break down barriers of isolation and lead to powerful community. It can also lead to healing conversation. Opening up to your friends is a powerful weapon when you're fighting to beat negativity and restore good friendship.

3. Be intentionally and awkwardly nice. Here's my favorite way to fight slander. When someone I know talks bad about someone else, I try to think of something extremely nice to say about the person being talked about. That always makes things super awkward, because NO ONE talks nice about people anymore...but it also unlocks something hidden away in people—their desire to build up their friends.  If you want to change a culture of negativity and stop slander, break the pattern by saying something awkwardly nice.


Fighting negativity requires two things: First, noticing it. Second, choosing to do something about it. Choose to do something about it when you notice it. If you're lonely or you need a good support system that's broken because of negativity—don't settle for it.

Change the game. Change your house. Change the world.

How Sites Like Buzzfeed Can Steal Your Sabbath

Photo by Mike Licht

So I noticed something the other day.

I spent part of my Sunday surfing around on good old Facebook. And then I realized it was stressing me out.

I was using Facebook as a way to relax...you know, because it's supposed to be relaxing to glide around the internet, sightseeing at your own pace.

But that's not what happened at all. Instead, one of those obnoxious magnetic headlines drew me in. It said something like "This is how we know we still have a problem in America." And its sole purpose was to make me furious.

Not exactly the emotional state I was planning for my day of rest.

Have you ever had a day off that somehow inexplicably wore you out just as much as a normal work day?

It's most likely because you had no peace. 

And Facebook may be one of the culprits.

If you ever get on Facebook, you know the articles I'm talking about—the ones with the headlines that say something like "A woman feeds a bear with her head, and what happens next is not surprising...I can't believe this is allowed to be on the internet!!!"

Here's a secret: the people who put out those "clickbait" headlines are using your emotions to make money.

For my content marketing job, I've been doing a lot of studying into why people share things online. Would you like to know what makes people share things?

The Buzzfeed "Provoke the Reader" Formula

Let me tell you what sites like Buzzfeed are doing to you.

In the book Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reported a study that suggested when your heart rate goes up, you're more likely to share something on social media.

So...these sites' main goal is to get you to experience an emotion that makes your heart rate rise.

Emotions like:

• Anger
• Stress
• Astonishment
• Fear
• Humor 

Because if they can get you to feel one of those, you'll share it more often.

But...aside from humor, those emotions aren't very restful, are they? Buzzfeed isn't overly concerned about you getting the rest you need, are they? If you're like me, you almost never come away from Facebook feeling "rested."

Don't Let Social Media Steal Your Rest Day

People need legitimate rest in order to recharge. Once a week. It's how we were made. Our souls have to take a break from stress, work, and frustration.

For me, provoking social media articles are often the thieves who steal my rest. And it's been so subtle, I haven't realized it until now.

So, if you've been feeling run down, like your rest days haven't been rest days—keep a close eye on the articles you choose to read during your Sabbath. Are they designed to bring you away from a state of rest, so you'll do what they want you to do—share the article?

Be careful on your day of rest. Buzzfeed can take it from you.

Mark 2:27 - "Then Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath."

4 Good Reasons Why Opening Up to Your Friends Will Make Your Life Better

Photo by Derek Mindler

We live in a world of increasing isolation.

No one really opens up anymore. Because we don't have to. Instead, we can just choose to zone out, use our smartphones, watch Netflix.

We can choose to live the deepest part of our lives completely alone.

And many of us have. I know I've made that choice on plenty of occasions.

It's normal these days to live our deepest lives alone, and just show the fake surface to our friends. Why? Because "opening up" has been dubbed as something weak people do. So instead, we hide.

We hide in the dark, by ourselves at night in our bed, without any rational person's voice to challenge Satan's whisperings.

"You're pathetic. You'll never be good enough."

"Why can't you be more like her? Then maybe you'd have what she has."

"Don't tell anyone. Deal with this by yourself like a big boy. Everyone else does."

Let me tell you something. 

You are being lied to.

Many of the things your inner accuser says aren't even true. But you'll never know that unless you begin to open up about them. And that's why I've compiled a short list of four big reasons why opening up is extremely important to your ministry, community, and spiritual life.

4 Reasons to Open Up to Your Friends

1. It makes you stronger. Opening up feels like it makes you weak... but trust me, it doesn't. In my mind, there's a thought that I'll become a weakling if I open up. But every single time I've opened up, it's made me much stronger, resolved, and clear in my thinking. It's simply a good decision. Learn to think of opening up less like wussing out...and more like working out.

2. It not only makes you stronger, but it makes your friends stronger too. When you open up about your struggles, your friends realize it's okay to struggle themselves. Everyone struggles. Let's stop pretending that some of us don't! Hearing about your problems helps your friends grasp, own, and overcome their problems. You strengthen everyone along with you when you open up. The Bible uses the picture of "iron sharpening iron" to describe two people opening up to each other. Everyone gets sharper when true struggles are brought to the light.

3. People start believing lies when they're alone. Isolation is a huge factor in our pain, sin, and hurt... and in the lies we believe. When we're not listening to any voices of reason, we start to listen to that voice that beats us up when we're by ourselves in our beds at night, wondering why we don't measure up. But listening to a friend gives you another voice, one that can tell you if what you're believing about yourself is true or not.

4. You get closer to people you care about. And when community is strengthened... you get to understand your friends better...and have much deeper, meaningful relationships in your life. Who doesn't want that?

Yes, we live in a world of increasing isolation. But we don't have to settle for it. We can choose to open the door to the community we were made for.

But we truly have to choose it. We actually have to take a step forward.

Crack the door of your heart open to someone you trust. And don't be surprised when the blessings built up on the other side tumble into your life like an overstuffed closet.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 - "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up."

Improve Your Spiritual Life by Acting like...a Child?

Photo by ann_jutatip

Pressure always seems to accompany important goals.

Perform well, or fail in your purpose. That's what we tell ourselves.

As I've been writing my book, I've begun feeling the heaviness of intimidating, unanswered questions. What if I fail? What if I don't have what it takes to write a best selling book?

The pressure recently came to a tipping point for me. I started feeling like I had brought a Nerf gun into a war zone. I'm so in over my head, I thought. I don't know how to do this.

So I broke down. I wept over feeling inadequate to carry God's message well enough. He had entrusted me with something to say, something that's changed my life, and I felt completely insufficient to share that message in a compelling way.

But then, God met me with a surprising answer.

There's a little story in the Bible about how Jesus interacted with children (Matt. 19:14), where he says something extremely peculiar:

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them — for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

I've heard this verse all my life — but the message hit me differently this time:

The kingdom belongs to people who live, love, and ask like little children. People who don't fake like they know it all, like they can handle the heavy lifting alone. People who instead realize the need to depend on the one who's been guiding their story all along.

"Depending on God" has become a muddled, colorless phrase — a ringing we've tuned out, a smell we've gotten used to. We mindlessly say, "Yes, depend on God." And then we go off to build our castles without inviting Him to help.

But we've missed one thing — one wildly important thing — that we can't build anything of eternal significance without His hands.

When we do try, it's like carrying a toy gun into a war zone. Your gun may be big and impressive...but it's still shooting Nerf darts. Have fun trying to win a war with your Nerf darts.

We are out of our league.

But maybe God likes that. Maybe He crafted our lives this way on purpose, so He would get the glory instead.

That's been God's rhythm from the beginning.

So often, we feel unfit to do important things in this world. But we forget that He used the unfit people to do his greatest works.

Look what Moses said —“Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue...” (Exodus 4:10). 

Or what Gideon said —“Pardon me, my Lord, but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:15).

God always seems to invite the "unfit" to be key players in His big rescue story. Because they seem to be the only ones with the heart space to let God do what He wants. They're the only ones who know they HAVE to depend on Him.

In that case, I'm so glad I fit into the "unfit" category!

So God wants you to become more dependent, like a child. 

How do you do that?

Here are some ways to be more like a kid:

1. Kids know when they need help, and they ask for it. When children get hungry, they don't think, I've got to find a way to get the money to pay for McDonalds. They just say, "MOM! I need food." And they ask for it unashamedly. Because they're kids.

2. Kids have full trust that their parents will attend to their needs. As one might expect, children are masters of "childlike faith." After making their needs known, they don't sit there and worry whether their parents are going to come through. Kids have faith that their needs will actually be met.

3. Kids operate out of that safety. If it's dinner time, they'll make their way downstairs. If they need something for school — no need to order it online, because mom said it's going to be waiting for them by the door tomorrow.  Kids' actions reflect the certainty that their needs will be met.

I want these qualities in my relationship with God.

Because once they make their way into my spiritual life, I know I'll begin to see them in my writing, my job, and my ministry.

I'm convinced God wants that for me. And I think he wants it for you, too.

What might it look like for you to adopt childlike habits in your spiritual life?