Monday, April 20, 2009

Church discipline...Oh my!

Church discipline has always been an interesting idea for me. Churches used to be very serious about it. I remember the first time I read about the punishment stool used for members under discipline. I thought, "I'm not showing up to church to sit on the naughty stool and wear a dunce hat or whatever...who does that???"

I know several people who've been disciplined by their modern church. In every instance they've been tossed out of their church without any of the Matthew 18 protocol attempted. They've all been guilty of the same offense, disagreeing with their Pastor. In every instance I have personal knowledge of, the Pastor just punted them. There was never a chance of reconciliation. I have personally disagreed with my Pastors several times over the years. I've always tried to be very respectful to the person who is my spiritual leader. On at least one occasion I failed, and was shown love and mercy...not a punt. So while, I totally understand biblical discipline, I haven't seen it well done. I think for the most part, it is not done...especially not for biblical reasons.

This new series of posts being done by the iMonk should be interesting. I don't know where he's going with it, but I'm interested and I thought you might be too.

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/where-is-church-discipline-when-you-need-it-part-1-a-better-approach

No comments: