A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret (Proverbs 11:13).

"Why didn't you tell me?"  His eyes look stung, as by an onion.  The corner of his upper lip seemed to be tugged in and out like it was on an invisible string.  He was obviously hurt by the fact that I hadn't informed him ahead of time about the shift in ministry strategy which had just been publicly shared with the church.

I honestly didn't know what to say.  "Well, we wanted to be careful and deliberate about the flow of information..." But even as I tried to offer this half-hearted canned corporate statement, I knew that it wasn't going to soothe the sting that my friend was feeling in the moment.

"But we're friends, Eric!" He said.  "We're in a life group together!"  Clearly, he had expected to be consulted, confided in, and clued in on the changes ahead of time, giving him something of an inside track to adaptation over and above the other members of the church.  And truthfully, if I was in his situation, I would probably feel the same way.

But how was I supposed to explain this to my friend?  The decision to withhold the processing of this particular ministry decision was indeed deliberate, but it was not personal.  It was just where the guy was at.  God had been doing beautiful things -- miraculous things -- in his life since he had come to Christ two years previously.  But I knew that my friend's mouth was still a weak point in his development.  And while I was willing to share with him my personal sins and slips -- even if it would somehow get out and boomerang back on me -- I did not feel it was wise to share the ministry situation with him in this particular instance.  He had proved himself to have relatively loose lips in a couple of other, minor, situations which had been shared.  And since our church's leadership team was specifically steering the communication of this particular strategic shift, mindful not to allow miscommunication and misconceptions to derail the planned implementation of our carefully considered transition, it just seemed like it would be better to withhold conversation on this particular point from my friend:  holding one confidence in tension with another.  I felt like I had done the best I could with the situation, protecting the plan that had been developed with my leadership team; but obviously, it didn't protect my friend's feelings at all.  And now that he was already hurt -- how painful would it be to openly question his trustworthiness and mention my doubts about his ability to keep a confidence?  In the end, I bypassed the problem by simply stating, "I'm sorry.  I can understand how you would be disappointed."  And I left it at that.

Confidentiality is a tricky thing.  It sometimes means betraying one set of expectations in order to ensure the expecations of another.  It means that sometimes, people might feel betrayed by the lack of a betrayal.  But a trustworthy man keeps a secret when it's best to do so.  For better or for worse.