I want to encourage each of you to take a look at 9Marks new ejournal on church discipline. Here is my question: Have any of you witnessed church discipline first hand? If so, what did it look like?
I have seen church discipline done several times at my church here in Louisville (Immanuel Baptist Church). Each time one person has confronted another about a habitual sin that they were unrepentant over. Each time the person refused to repent. After this step the confronting party took one or two others with them and confronted the unrepentant church member. At this point several people have heeded the rebuke, repented, and we rejoiced with them publicly at church. One gal even gave a public testimony. Several others refused to repent of their sin and the confronting parties brought the issue to the elders and the elders laid it before the church. The church then went into a time of prayer of the unrepentant party. During this time the church also sought out the unrepentant party in love and we sought to reconcile them to Christ. After a couple months of focused love and prayer the people still refused to repent. In our members meeting we voted to excommunicate them from our church and remove them from membership. This excommunication was announced publicly on Sunday morning. We now treat those excommunicated as unbelievers and still seek to win them to Christ, but they are not welcome in our church until them repent.
By and large, I think my church followed Matthew 18:15-17 as best as a church possibly can given such difficult circumstances.
I have never seen church discipline. I think part of it is due to the conservative nature of my area, and people are not very "loud" about sins. They have a sense of what should be spoken and what should not be spoken. I equate it to those people who embezzle money that you would never have guessed because it's a secret and they wouldn't dare openly discuss it with someone.
At least in my church, their parents may be members, but the teens really have no say in the governmental structure of the church (i.e. the voting done by the members).
I think that if a student is old enough to be baptized and choose to be a member of a church, then, yes, they can be disciplined. Again, this goes back to taking church membership more seriously than we normally do.
8 comments:
I have seen church discipline done several times at my church here in Louisville (Immanuel Baptist Church). Each time one person has confronted another about a habitual sin that they were unrepentant over. Each time the person refused to repent. After this step the confronting party took one or two others with them and confronted the unrepentant church member. At this point several people have heeded the rebuke, repented, and we rejoiced with them publicly at church. One gal even gave a public testimony. Several others refused to repent of their sin and the confronting parties brought the issue to the elders and the elders laid it before the church. The church then went into a time of prayer of the unrepentant party. During this time the church also sought out the unrepentant party in love and we sought to reconcile them to Christ. After a couple months of focused love and prayer the people still refused to repent. In our members meeting we voted to excommunicate them from our church and remove them from membership. This excommunication was announced publicly on Sunday morning. We now treat those excommunicated as unbelievers and still seek to win them to Christ, but they are not welcome in our church until them repent.
By and large, I think my church followed Matthew 18:15-17 as best as a church possibly can given such difficult circumstances.
I have never seen church discipline. I think part of it is due to the conservative nature of my area, and people are not very "loud" about sins. They have a sense of what should be spoken and what should not be spoken. I equate it to those people who embezzle money that you would never have guessed because it's a secret and they wouldn't dare openly discuss it with someone.
Whatever the case, I haven't witnessed it.
Here's a question: should you practice church discipline on a youth group?
I'm guessing not, since they aren't technically church members...
Why aren't they church members?
At least in my church, their parents may be members, but the teens really have no say in the governmental structure of the church (i.e. the voting done by the members).
I am unsure as to what the reasoning is.
I think that if a student is old enough to be baptized and choose to be a member of a church, then, yes, they can be disciplined. Again, this goes back to taking church membership more seriously than we normally do.
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