Church discipline is something we may well hope never to have to handle. Unfortunately, the new testament makes clear it’s something that can easily crop up, including in healthy and well-run fellowships. What’s important, then, is that our own fellowship has some idea how to handle it if it does arise, because it may very well need the church as a whole to act together.
It’s vital also to clarify this shared understanding before ever it arises and becomes a matter of personalities and friendships, when following it through in a biblical way can become a lot more difficult and painful.
Two prefatory remarks. First, I want to draw attention to the fine article by Stephen McQuoid among the excellent pastoral resources on the Living Leadership site, https://www.livingleadership.org/article/church-discipline, which covers many aspects of this issue. What follows is really no more than a series of PSs to that.
And second, this article is not tackling the questions of abuse or safeguarding; these are very important issues that would need a full treatment to themselves.
WHAT GOD WARNS US TO EXPECT
First then: What does the Bible say about church discipline? A surprising amount; for example:
`A man has his father’s wife! And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?… I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a person do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?` (1 Cor 5:2, 9,11-12; a relevant passage for situations when `being judgmental` (or intolerant) is presented as the one sin to be avoided.)
`Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter` [says Paul of the crisis-teaching in his God-inspired epistle]. `Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed` (2 Thess 3:14).
`In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us` (2 Thess 3:6).
`Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them` (Titus 3:10). (This verse does need the footnote that there are times when division, especially over doctrinal error, is unavoidable, indeed necessary; see 1 Cor 11:17-19, and Galatians from 1:6-9 onwards. But at other times `party spirit` (Gal 5:20 RSV; fostering `factions`, NIV) is a serious error, and in Titus 3’s case we see how it precipitates church discipline.)
Also worth reflecting on here are Matthew 18:15-17, Galatians 6:1, and James 5:19-20.
PRACTICAL ISSUES
I am (thankfully) able to think of very few cases of church discipline from my own time as a pastor, but here are three examples:
We have asked people engaged (avoidably) in a relationship with an unbeliever to stand down from ministry where they might be a bad model to younger believers.
When a former member was showing himself to be repeatedly sexually predatory, my former colleague either made it clear he should not come to our church, or was going to do so if he reappeared. (Neither of us could remember which!)
On another occasion when someone was deliberately and confessedly headed in the direction of sexual sin and rejection of their marriage partner, we asked them not to take communion, while saying we wouldn’t actually prevent them doing so.
Practically, this (communion) might well be the second step where the sin is unrepented. The first might be asking them to step down for the time being from organizing activities or from any visible ministry. (Such as worship leading, an important example in my experience – is it true that musicians can get given more leeway because they are harder to replace?) Any such discipline should obviously be set up as discreetly as is possible, which both limits gossip and makes restoration to full fellowship easier; consistently however with the need of the church to know that something has been done about any public sins. And then, if sin remains unrepented, this second step is asking them to abstain from the Lord’s Supper, since they are not accepting Christ’s Lordship in their lives. (See the repetition of `the Lord` as keynote in the great communion passage of 1 Cor 11:27-32.)
And then the third step, as we see in the biblical passages above, is clear withdrawal of fellowship and of mutual support. (Part of this, if our church has a membership system, might be withdrawal of membership – and perhaps this is best done by saying, `I’d like us to agree together that you will cease to act as a member. If not we will have to take this to the church members`? Again, it is good to give no more details publicly than are absolutely essential in these situations. (For legal reasons in addition to others.))
But this withdrawal of fellowship is where it can get very difficult and painful, given that personal friendships are likely to be involved. And this is where the church has to act as one; which is why as leaders we have to overcome our very appropriate reluctance, and consider how this preparation of the church for extreme circumstances where there is clear, major, unrepented sin, and for how discipline might operate in that case, is in place well in advance, building very clearly on the relevant biblical passages. The aim of all church discipline must, always, be rescue, and growth, and restoration; but most of the new testament references see the main form of discipline in really serious cases as taking the form of clear and overt withdrawal of fellowship. So we have to face the very difficult question of what that may actually look like in practice; particularly given that our hope is repentance, growth, and restoration. (And therefore we will obviously desire to stay in touch, if that is possible; this might mean restricting relationship to one `lifeline person`, while eg asking the person concerned not to come to homegroup?)
It is true of course that, once confronted, the person will most likely distance themselves from the church anyway before this kind of public discipline takes effect. (Quoting my wise former colleague: `Properly understood, discipline carries restoration as a major ingredient; but the sad part is when the evil one tricks them into thinking it’s only a big, shaming stick (or maybe that’s the image it has, and we don’t teach anything to correct the image), so they cut themselves off from their own healing.`) But they may not (especially if they are a leader themselves). And practically, where a church has developed a good culture of individuals taking initiative rather than top-down swallow-this-and-do-it, this kind of discipline by withdrawal of fellowship can be difficult to implement. When I have seen such a situation (in another country – I wasn’t part of it), there was great difficulty with friends of the disciplined person refusing to accept the leadership‘s view that the sin was serious (even though that was all too obviously true), and that the discipline was to be supported collectively. Again, this is why our churches need very occasional preparatory teaching, at least at key leadership levels, on what must happen biblically if for example there is one day unrepented financial dishonesty, or refusal to cease divisive actions, or unrepented sexual sin. It may well be, if the church has a members-only meeting, that such biblical teaching should happen there, and not in the normal service. For the church as a whole, pointing this out carefully during exposition of 1 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians and Titus may be the way forward.
Lastly, though, let’s note, first, that church leaders can all too easily get this wrong, and much prayer and caution is needed. Also, that many of these issues should never get to the stage of church discipline. Again quoting my experienced colleague: `If we all took it upon ourselves to say, for example, “Stop there please, this is gossip; I don’t need to hear this because I’m not part of the problem and I’m not part of the solution,” then the leadership wouldn’t ever have to discipline gossips. One time when a leader was embarking on a covert relationship outside their marriage, a couple of people said “I wondered if those two were getting too close.” Which made you wonder if no-one had the nerve, as a friend, to say anything? All leaders need to make very clear that others are welcome to challenge them on anything; and should we not have that kind of personal protection in housegroups or prayer triplets? Leadership must step up and deal with things as necessary, but a church needs to admit that, if that point is reached, there’s probably been a simple failure of fellowship.`
(I myself heard of one instance where someone was asked to stand down from their ministry by way of discipline. After starting to worship elsewhere, the person in question wrote to the church meeting complaining at their treatment. The leadership put the letter, and their own case, to the church meeting, who supported the leadership action. But, they added that they wished it had been dealt with 5 years earlier.`)
Again, please read Stephen McQuoid’s fuller balanced treatment at https://www.livingleadership.org/article/church-discipline . These thoughts here are just some PSs.
LEGAL ISSUES
Finally one other consideration. Given that, according to Scripture, church discipline is a part of church life which is likely to crop up very occasionally; and given the possibility in our increasingly litigious culture of major legal implications (ie the church getting sued for significant sums) in a discipline situation; it is almost certainly wise for churches with membership systems to ensure that potential members are asked, in the membership process, to make clear they understand (from the church’s rulebook) that a godly life as defined by Scripture will be expected of them; and, that where it seems this is not the case, church discipline would be a genuine possibility; so that people come into membership having made clear they accept that this is so. The church’s rulebook to which they would be expected to give explicit assent might perhaps say something like this:
“Members are expected to participate consistently in communion and in church services (as health permits), to contribute towards the church’s support (as God enables them), and to wholeheartedly endorse and support the church’s statement of faith and its purpose statement. Also with God’s help to use their gifts to advance the gospel and the church’s purposes, to lead godly lives shaped by Scripture, and to accept pastoral guidance and potentially church discipline where this is considered not to be the case.”
And the membership application might say “By making this application I confirm that I agree wholeheartedly with the church’s statement of faith, and accept the membership responsibilities as stated in the church’s rule book.”
(For more of these resources please click on https://petelowmanresources.com/category/church-resources/ .)
