The Fall & Rise of Church Discipline

[mattrose]

I believe that one of the main reasons for the decline of the institutional church in America is its reluctance and/or inability to enact church discipline. Sometimes churches don't discipline members b/c they are afraid to lose numbers. Other times they just have a misunderstanding of what it means to love (ends up being 'nice,' but never 'tough'). Other times churches actually try to discipline, but it is far too easy for the sinning member to simply find another church down the street that will not only NOT confront the sin issue, but will share the sinners disdain for his/her previous church.

The last 2 months of my ministry have been very difficult. I want to share 3 specific stories to illustrate this problem in the church. I will, of course, change names to protect the innocent and the guilty. I only hope I have handled these situations in a godly way.

Situation #1
Harry (not his real name) is a really strong personality. He's always right, everyone else doesn't quite get it. He's actually shared with a Sunday School class before that, because he came to Christianity as an adult, he has absolutely no biases when he reads the Scriptures. He doesn't 'interpret,' he just gets it. Harry believes that people of true faith never stay sick. Harry doesn't like our church, but he has attended for a couple of years now. He complains about the church routinely. But he's already left so many other bad churches in the past that he's reluctant to leave ours.

One Sunday morning Harry doesn't like the sermon of our senior pastor and so he publicly rebukes the pastor in the line of hand-shakers after the service. Since this is just another episode in a long career of criticisms (the man has made people in my SS class cry by telling them their grandchildren died b/c they didn't have enough faith), the board of the church decides that it would be good to meet with Harry and discuss what needs to change if he wants to be a healthy part of the church family. But Harry never shows up again. The whole storyline will undoubtedly play out somewhere down the street. If he does show up, we have a letter ready that I'll give him, directing him to set up a meeting with the local board of elders.

Situation # 2
Jerry is a passionate, though immature, believer. He becomes a co-leader of the youth ministry, but doesn't really get the 'co' part and makes all sorts of decisions w/o consulting with anyone (sometimes bad decisions). On one occasion he steps into a role that wasn't his to step into. I call him into the office and alert him to the fact that that role was delegated to someone else. I state this strongly, repeated 3x that this is not his role. I later find out that he felt like he was in the principals office. He sends me a letter 4 days later resigning from youth ministry and from church membership. I call, he doesn't return my phone call.

Situation #3
On another Sunday Larry asks if we can have a meeting early in the week. When he comes in, he admits that he's on the road toward adultery and doesn't plan on stopping. He admits he wants Jesus to be his savior, but doesn't want Jesus to be his Lord. He admits to only partially loving Jesus. I tell him you can't willingly be committing adultery and yet legitimately call yourself a Christian. He asks if he can still attend church. I say that worship should make him uncomfortable and so attending as if everything is fine doesn't really make sense. I say that he can no longer be a 'member' of the church, but that we don't necessarily stop sinners from mere attendance on Sunday morning.

Larry's family (not the offended spouse, but his sister) writes an email that I have 'turned my back on' Larry and, therefore, their family can no longer continue in membership at our church. How dare I question whether Larry is a Christian? How dare I say that Larry shouldn't feel comfortable worshiping God while living in sin?

............

And here's the problem. Harry, Jerry & Larry will all just switch to other churches. They'll find a church that either doesn't know about the problems or a church that is willing to ignore them. With Harry & Jerry we were slow to discipline, but it didn't work (in that it didn't restore him to right relationship with the church). With Larry I was quick to discipline and it didn't work (in that he will likely not be restored to a proper walk with the Lord since he'll just find a church that tolerates the sin).

In other words, in contemporary America, where we have churches on every block, it is almost impossible to enact meaningful discipline. I believe this is a key reason for the failure of America's institutional churches. If we can figure out how to genuinely discipline members, we'll have a key ingredient to growing the church God has in mind. But is this impossible in this context?

[Homer]

Hi Matt,

I agree with you that church discipline is sorely lacking, but institutionalization of the church is not, IMO, the problem. I do not see how the situation would necessarily be improved if there were only house churches, and it might be worse. In earliest Christianity, it seems there was only one church with perhaps multiple congregations in a town. House churches might be no more cooperative with each other than denominational ones.

Denominationalism is probably more harmful than institutionalization in that the various churches in a given location do not cooperate as they should. Ironically, the most institutionalized, the RCC, probably can administer discipline more effectively than most any evangelical church in that a Catholic, who believes RCC dogma, will think he has no hope if he is excommunicated.

Part of the problem is that most evangelicals believe and teach that you can be saved as a member of any number of denominations (I'm not saying they are wrong in this), and yet these denominations do not cooperate to the extent necessary to enforce discipline, so people can just move on to where their "itching ears" will hear what they want. Perhaps a movement could be started to correct this, but I do not see how that would help in the case you cited re adultery. The man can dump his wife for a new woman and remarry. You might rebuke him and say he can not have the new woman while another church down the street may welcome the couple because of their lax teaching and policies re divorce.

God bless, Homer

[mattrose]

I think you are right about denominationalism being the problem. It's not really institutionalism to blame. The sad thing is, I don't really see a way that this will get fixed in my lifetime.

[TK]

Good topic, Matt.

It seems that the type of discipline you are talking about would only work if the "disciplinee" really likes the church he is attending and really loves people in the congregation. Then, if he is asked to stay away for a season, for example, then he would have motivation to straighten up and return to fellowship. If he doesn't really care about the church or the people, moving on would be easy.

of course i may be greatly underestimating the amount of pride in a disciplinee, which would allow him to be overly offended, assume the role of a wronged victim, and move on to another church, even if he has some strong ties to the church meting out the discipline.

TK

[christopher]

I agree with TK. The more personally vested one is in a community, the more effective the corrective measures will likely be. But I think ultimately what makes the difference is how personally vested one is in Christ. Without the person being "cut to the heart" about his damaged relationship with both Jesus and the body, real repentance is not possible anyway.

Having said that, it gets really tricky when a person is invested in the community, and it's the church leadership (not the individual) that needs the discipline. In that case, a person leaving the church and moving to another is simply an unfortunate, but necessary, evil. It would be a travesty, in my opinion, if that option should be removed through some sort of church discipline black list movement.