Church Discipline

[Tom Butler]

Over on the FBC Jacksonville thread, it was mentioned that a proposed by-law change would set up a discipline committee.

Question, does your congregation practice church discipline? What triggers it?

In my own church, formal church discipline disappeared in the 1940s. We're trying to bring it back, and there seems to be a trend toward a return to it.

I'd appreciate your thoughts and experiences.

[Joshua Villines]

Most of my work has been in urban, progressive congregations. I definitely don't see a trend towards church discipline in those settings.

[Dave Roberts]

The key issue of all discipline is its goal. If it is an effort to restore someone estranged from his or her Christian roots and from the community, then it may have a place that is biblical. If it is merely to assert the authority of the pastor or a small leadership core in order to keep the majority in line, then I see it as outside the biblical parameters for such discipline. Most of what I have read in church minutes was petty and punitive.

[William Thornton]

I haven't read the details of the FBCJax discipline committee but I'm speculating that in their case it is mostly about controlling and eliminating the critics of church leadership. Can't prove that, just a conjecture.

The calvinists are promoting their version of discipline. I've never been satisfied with how the lines are drawn. What is 'petty' to one may be major to another church or pastor.

[Steve Wilcox]

[Steve Wilcox]

[Dave Roberts]

[Steve Wilcox]

Yeah, you are correct we should just ignore it all.

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

Gluttony, anyone? (Just to name a less charged, though no less prevalent, iniquity.)

Haruo

[Tom Butler]

I have read the minutes of my church's business meetings going all the way back to 1902 (the first 10 years of minutes are missing). Church discipline (in the form of withdrawing fellowship) was practiced fairly regularly. It is obvious that it was redemptive in nature, since often those disfellowshipped appeared again as members. I wonder what happened over the years, because after the 1940s, I don't find but one instance of church discipline being practiced in our church.

It seems that our church is not alone. The practice of church discipline seems to have waned, even disappeared from many churches. Why are we reluctant to do so these days?

Was it practiced perfectly? Not from our modern perspective. In the late 1920s, our church withdrew fellowship from a member for gambling. Seems he had invested in the stock market. Given the big crash of 1929, the church might have been right.

[Tom Butler]

The business meeting minutes of my church are a gold mine. Our church clerk wrote detailed narratives, so we get a good picture of the Baptist culture of the early part of the 20th century, and how church discipline was practiced.

In one meeting, a brother rose and told the congregation that he and another brother were at odds, and would the congregation hear each side and help them reconcile. So they did, right then and there, and the two members reconciled that very night.

When I went to that church in 1963 as minister of music, I met an old deacon and his wife, two of the most delightful and faithful saints you'd ever want to know. Both were in their 80s.

Reading those minutes, I read that in 1932, a member rose at a business meeting and accused Brother Edgar of dancing. Brother Edgar, being present, was asked to respond to the accusation. He stood up, said yes, he had danced, with his own wife, and he wasn't sorry. Whereupon the church voted to disfellowship him. His wife also admitted that she had danced with her husband, but she was sorry, whereupon the church voted to forgive her.

The minutes do not show that Brother Edgar and his wife were eventually restored to fellowship, but obviously they were, and he was a deacon 30 years later.

Isn't this stuff rich? As I said, they're a gold mine.

[Haruo]

Yes, it is rich. I have read many of our church's minutes from the same general period, and we too practiced a fair amount of "withdrawing the hand of fellowship" in the early years. (Fremont Baptist was founded in 1892, which it sounds like makes it contemporary with your church.)

But where in the Scriptures, pray tell, did your church find the notion that for a man to dance with his wife, or she with him, was something to disfellowship over?

Haruo

[David Flick]

[debi]

I have a question.

Does anyone have a constructive, positive example of the Matthew 18 principle applied? IE two members are at odds and cannot reconcile, the one takes 2 witnesses and sets up a meeting with the other and they still don't reconcile...the first one then stands up at a business meeting and tells his brother that he has offended him...anyone ever see this work out well?

We just had this (a version of this) happen in our church and it isn't going very well. I am just curious as to how it may have played out elsewhere.

[Jonathan]

[Bill]

[Jonathan]

[William Thornton]

[jerryl]

I grew up in an area where all the rural Baptist churches 'disciplined' members up into the 1930's. Like Tom Butler said, the practice died out in the 40's. I had a few conversations in the 80's with some of the folks who let this practice die out. One of the main reasons their generation let this practice die out was they didn't see 'church discipline' used as a redemptive force, but instead as a tool to enforce power hierarchies within the church and community, and as way to get retribution for a something that didn't really involve the church at all.

They had stories from their youth and young adulthood of people being churched, officially for drinking, dancing, card playing, gambling, or working on Sunday, that really weren't pursued because of actual sins, but because of a deal where someone felt as if they were taken, a fence that wasn't mended and somebody's cattle got in a corn field that wasn't theirs, or somebody bought a car or something else that was 'just too good' for them. In some cases, 'church discipline' became a tool of feuds between different extended-families or even different branches of the same family.

The minutes of the church business meeting might tell the official reason for someone being 'churched' but according to the people I talked with, there was almost always an 'understory' that really explained the 'church discipline'.

Some of the senior men who told these stories thought that their generation stopped using 'church discipline' because they saw the hypocrisy in it, and found it distasteful. But one older friend says that farm-to-market roads killed off church discipline; it became too easy to get to another church after your old church kicked you out.

jerryl

[Norm]

[Haruo]

[Jonathan]

[Haruo]

Nevertheless Jonathan, there are indeed different body types and metabolisms. ten people of the same height who eat the same diet and engage in the same amount of exercise (and are under the same amount of every other environmental condition you can measure) for their entire lives will not all weigh the same amount at any given age. And occasionally there will be cases that deviate markedly from the mean.

Still, I think in Bill's case he needs to overcome his notion of starvation. I may have a similar need.

Handedness can be overcome, too; just ask Ed P. But should it be? I know what appear to be morally lazy GLBT folks, and I know what appear to be morally well-disciplined, hard-working GLBT folks, and I have seen some of the efforts some of the latter have put into being not what they are, and the church should be ashamed of putting such burdens on people. IMHO.

Haruo

[Steve Wilcox]

Some of you are making good points about church disciple being applied consistently and over time. I agree with you that if a church, in a time of conflict, which has not been applying consistent needed discipline, all of the sudden starts, then it probably could be for the wrong reason. The implied reason being to control or quiet others could come into play.

I have not read the proposed by-law changes, much less have a copy of them.

As for the past use of church discipline, I have never seen FBC Jax publically use church discipline. I must point out that I am not an FBC Jax deacon, so I cannot write about whether or not the deacons have involved themselves in any conflicts in the past. I would assume they have but I really do not know.

I would like to point out something and that is that when we have a problem with someone it is best to go to them and attempt to get it resolved. If someone has a problem with the way you are doing something please try to help them understand why it is done that way. Telling a disagreeing party to simpy leave the church if they don't like it does not work.

If you do not like the way someone is doing some please go to them, do not lower yourself to using a blog about your church business.
Finally, I need to remove myself from these discussions regarding FBC Jax, my family and I have decided to move on to find another church.