Comments on: Where Is Church Discipline When You Need It? Part 3: Who Needs It?

By: pentamom

pentamom — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:05:14 +0000

Sorry, that was B, not D, that I was referring to. But referring to D, I’ve never heard of a situation where “the husband is the head of the home,” no matter how strictly held, was construed as a license for the husband to act like an idiot toward his family without any correction being called for.

By: pentamom

pentamom — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:03:51 +0000

I think people missed the boat on D. The problem here is not the kid, it’s that the parents don’t know how to handle the situation in their own home. That doesn’t mean they need to be “blamed,” but they need help from the church in addressing a problem in their home — i.e. discipline.

Church discipline isn’t ultimately about refereeing and enforcing the rules and making everybody toe the line, though that’s a common and understandable misconception. It’s about bringing the tools of the church — gospel ministry, fellowship, and pastoral gifts — to bear on the real life issues of people in the church.

By: Lance Athanasius

Lance Athanasius — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:42:10 +0000

Deborah is correct. Most people who experience any kind of correction or discipline normally just move on to another church. Church Hoppers. They keep doing this until they eventually meet someone who helps them grow up. I know families who are on their 4th or 5th church after leaving ours, and we weren’t the first. I am sure it was the fault of all 7 or 8 pastors they have encountered, at least they would tell you so. I know we began with Matthew 18, but we are reminded in 2 Timothy that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training. Use Scripture to back up your discipline, and as Galatians 6 reminds us, “restore gently”.
Example D I have some experience with. Our man wanted the church to give him money. The pastor offered to give him private financial counseling. His wife was working 2 jobs. One of them was working with the pastor’s wife (pastor’s wife hired her). Without getting into too many details, in the end they left our church amidst a wake of destruction that affected the lives of nearly every member and attender. They even put the pastor and his wife on trial without even consulting me, the only other elder besides the pastor. All those who participated eventually repented (except the man). It still hurts to this day because their daughter was my daughters best friend at the time. Suffice to say, after it happened, I thought my pastor had handled it wrong, until they did the same thing in another church in our association. I am sure they would tell some “horror story” of how the church had hurt them. After 8 years I still miss them, but the man did not “respect those who were over him in the Lord”. 1 Thess. 5:12-13. As the old saying goes, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”.

By: Deborah

Deborah — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:54:11 +0000

I’m not a pastor or anything, but I have noticed a change in church dicipline in the past 10 or 15 years. The political correctness of the world is alive and well in the church today. Judge not lest you be judged. We shy away from preaching the hard stuff and from calling sin sin. We are afraid to offend anyone. I agree with Martha, when someones’ reaction to church dicipline is to “lawyer up”, the church has some serious problems in the teaching and preaching department. While any kind of church dicipline is never easy, getting behind the “big” public sins like adultery are pretty much a no brainer and have the added benifit of giving those bringing the charges a bit of self rightousness over being scriptually correct and often comes off as being morally superior. Over the past 40 years or so, I can only think of about three times where the person being diciplined actually stayed within the same body of believers and worked through the issues and these examples were a long time ago. More recently, people just leave the church altogether or they just move to another body. It takes more time than Sunday morning and more people than just the pastor to restore an erring brother or to keep him from erroring in the first place. To me, church dicipline is tied directly to church dicipleship, teaching and loving each other. If we did more of the latter, the occasions to practice church dicipline would hopefully be few and far between.

By: Anna A

Anna A — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:42:40 +0000

Alana,

I suspect that a number of us who hang out here agree with you that church discipline is handled poorly. Partly, because we have been hurt, or seen others hurt. I count myself in that number.

I was talked to (and lost all respect for the pastor) because I questioned some statements that he made in a sermon. I did it privately, but even got slammed because I approached him in a letter than in person. I have never felt battered after a phone conversation, but I did with him.

By: Chrissl

Chrissl — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:52:22 +0000

I’ll politely disagree with those who think any of iMonk’s cases are *not* cases that call for church discipline. Karla is not the problem in (C) — the problem is that someone broke a confidence, and THAT person should be disciplined. The financially irresponsible husband’s case has nothing to do with who is the head of the house, it has to do with being an irresponsible adult. And the tires case is not about tires: it’s about fairness on the one hand and forgiveness on the other.

The problem, of course, is that the church can only discipline those who have agreed to be accountable to it. I applaud those who make clear to their members that accountability is part of the membership “package.”

Incidentally, I have always liked the Quaker term for discipline, which is “laboring with” someone. *Everyone* in the situation has to put some real work into it if anything is going to come right. Quakers have a long history of being very upfront with any of their members who have fallen into error. Unfortunately, Quakers also have as many problems as anyone else these days with those to whom the idea of being accountable in any way to their fellow believers comes as a nasty shock.

By: ldonnie

ldonnie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:57:35 +0000

Considering discipline in the church or home or among friends – shouldn’t it really come down to love for the individual? So much of perceived “church discipline” is about enforcing the rules – although based on the Word – kind of like a referee at a football game.

From my experience – both as a giver and a givee – discipline has to be based on love for the person in question based on what the Bible says or implies about a particular situation. It is easier to be invited into a situation, however, some situations demand intervention but still must be immersed in love and redemption.

“I love you so much that I must say something about your destructive ways with yourself, family, church or all the above.”

So many times we must resort to “church discipline” because “friend discipline” was not nonexistence.

By: Teenage Mutant Ninja Tertullian

Teenage Mutant Ninja Tertullian — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:36:08 +0000

Allow me to propose a few more cases (much more problematic):

1. Julie, a college student, has been dating the same young man for two years. People suspect they are sleeping together. Discipline or not?

2. Bob and Ethel are a middle-aged married couple who just moved in from another city. They seem the very model of respectability. It gradually surfaces that they have both been married before–to other people, whom they divorced in order to marry one another. Ethel was a student in Bob’s college class at the time. Discipline or not?

3. Bubba holds negative views about certain racial minorities. He denies being a racist, but insists that sociology is on his side. He also shot a deer out of season. Discipline or not?

4. Wayne does not understand the Trinity, and confesses that he only recites the creed because everybody else does–not because he really believes it. Discipline or not?

By: Alana

Alana — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:37:12 +0000

As a non-Christian, leftie liberal, this is a fascinating discussion to read!

The “church discipline” name unfortunately makes me think of spankings. I gather you are not talking about physical discipline, which I’ve seen advocated on some extremely patriarchal Christian website.

I am all in favour of pointed conversations with a person who is harming themselves or harming others. It ought to be confidential, not humiliating. Procedures would differ depending on whether the “church” is the person’s community, or their employer. (Secular approaches to employee discipline and conflict resolution would apply.)

Some of the examples highlight behaviour Christians consider a sin, which I would call a symptom.
- An effective conversation with the young man in situation B would focus on “how can we help you start doing something productive with your life?” not “Drugs and sex are evil!”
- The people having affairs need to hear “Having an affair is a big sign that your marriage needs to change, or to end”, not be humiliated, excommunicated or destroyed by the (very common) sin of adultery.

I don’t have confidence that all church leaders would have the grace to address these issues so thoughtfully, given how some Christians have demonized sex, drugs, and other activities that can be harmless in moderation. Thus, I suspect that some “church discipline” would be counterproductive.

By: Surfnetter

Surfnetter — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:01:38 +0000

Steve — “They documented that all members have consented to the Matthew 18 process of church discipline and correction if/when appropriate, and that appropriate utilization of this process would be considered in their ecclesiology as an act of love, not malice. They believe theyâ€™ve now cleared the legal minefield.”

The mines are now harder for the legal lay person to detect, and more legally binding and explosive. They have placed the security of their spiritual health in the hands of the secular (and crooked) judicial system.

Wouldn’t make me feel more secure ….