Church Discipline Contract
Posted by Todd Rhoades in Leadership on Jan 24th, 2012 | 11 commentsWhat do you think of this ‘Church Discipline Contract’?
This was posted over at JesusNeedsNewPR. I’ve taken and blurred out the name of the church; not because I want to hide it; but I don’t want it to skew your original thoughts on to whether this is a good or bad way to handle a church discipline matter.
Take a look. I’d love your first reaction. Is this a great way to handle a church discipline issue? A horrible way?
Thoughts?
11 Responses to “ “Church Discipline Contract”
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I like it. Thorough. Clear expectations often impede progress.
Danger, of course, is legalistic application as opposed to a grace-based application. Here’s hoping the man is fully restored.
Don’t know if I’d do it just like this. Would probably have them help design the plan. But hard to criticize since I don’t know the details.
Well this is the law side of things; so yes, there needs to be constructive steps to the restoration. Andrew has a heart problem first, applying restrictive laws will not change his heart. Law is powerless to bring change, it usually brings forced behavior modification, begrudging service.
What we want is not Andrew to just stop sinning, but to so love Jesus he no longer wants to sin against his Lord. He must view God’s sexual guidelines as the path to healing and wholeness designed to protect him and others.
So I applaud the church for taking discipline action in an age where most churches are chicken to, but I would have to see how they plan to address the sinful heart issue, not just try to curb or control the outward behavior.
Also on the lighter side. If the dude is struggling with sexual issues do you really want to send him to a triple X care group and a XXX Chruch? I’m all for being innovative, but come on man.
This is not as cut and dry to just read the contract. You must read the entire story before deciding this is the right or wrong thing to do. On the surface it may sound fine and biblical with an eye towards restoration but after you read the entire story, I am leaning more towards abuse of power and twisting the gospel.
Amen brother.
Questions – Is the policy evenly applied? Was it known? Is the church a voluntary organization? If he wants,the young man can simply walk away. No reason for hand wringing. No one forced him to attach himself to the life of the congregation or remain. If you’re not happy, go to another church. The way I see it, no victims here…you are a free person living in America. Move on.
I think it’s terrible, manipulative, and unbiblical for the following reasons:
So if Andrew, according to the contract, already came forward, brought his own sin to light, doesn’t that say that Andrew maybe doesn’t need this so much? MAtthew 18 says if he “hears you,” you have gained your brother. It doesn’t say, “if he jumps through all our hoops….” If this was someone you had to force a confession out of, whom you caught red handed, maybe this would be acceptable. Why would anyone want to come forward on their own, under conviction of the Holy Spirit, if they knew their church would slap this on them?
Tell us, how long would the list of “people I have sinned against” be if some of us wrote it out, and shouldn’t there be something like, “use back of page if necessary?” What is the leadership going to do with this list?
How much detail on the sexual/emotional attachment history? How much detail in writing out “chronology of events and sexual/emotional sin…”is expected? Is the goal restoration or embarrassment? Does this guy expected to go through life knowing that these “elders” have a file on him that can be pulled out and used when necessary—why else would they want it written?
I don’t see this as discipline at all. It’s coercion. What part of this resembles, “if he hears you, you have gained your brother?” Obviously a bunch of people wiser than Jesus came up with this.
Seriously? This seems to me to be awfully close to ecclesiastical blackmail.
Also, I was struck by the requirements to write out in detail his sexual and emotional history. For what purpose? And who’s going to be reading through this deeply personal report? Yuck!
This is just an ugly abuse of power.
I see numerous problems. BishopDave’s points about how confession of sin as Andrew did is ignored. He is treated like he is unrepentant in violation of Gal. 6:1-3. It also has no end period, no statement of how to be released from this contract, and no clear means for him to demonstrate “a repentant lifestyle.”
Knowing the story background, and that the woman involved,”K”, was not under a similar level of restriction, and she did NOT confess to her sin, it seems very heavy handed.
Yeah. In my opinion this is terrible. This takes the matter from the level of real fellowship into a “do this; not that” and then you can be among us again. I fail to see how this is biblical. Especially since Andrew went to his friend and community group leader. I assume that his group leader, in turn, went to the Elder of Pastor and informed him or her (but let’s be honest…if they have a contract like this, it is most likely a him) of the confessed sin. In the future, Andrew will think twice about confessing. This is a terrible example of relationship. This is an example of lording over folks. Terrible. Terrible, indeed!
Churches should not have contracts for members to sign for anything.
No one caught that the woman was a church elders daughter in the story that Andrew was with. I suspect politics or an elder that was pushing an agenda for how this was handled.
But maybe I’m showing my inner conspiracy theorist.
My first reaction is that it’s a good idea accomplished in the wrong way. It looks like the Holy Spirit convicted Andrew and he confessed to his friend and subsequently to his CG leader. Sounds good to me. Are we to assume since these confessions were made and the church is following with a contractual discipline procedure that Andrew confessed his sin and was not repentant?
I agree with removing him from serving for a period of time. Some of the other steps of the process seem a bit out of bounds. He cannot pursue or date someone? The remainder of this one is not given, but the church is dictating who a member can date?
We have to ask, “Is this process designed to restore the individual, or is it punishment for self disclosure?”