Church Discipline

At 77 and Churched all my life, I would like to run a Poll and see how many have been in a Church that exercised Church Discipline?

Hello @ClayPot, I was baptized as an infant and went to church through college at a United Presbyterian Church (aka PCUSA now) and I cannot remember a single time that church discipline was applied to anyone.

When I finally became a true believer (at age 30 .. I had been CINO up until that point) I joined a far more conservative denomination, The Evangelical Free Church of America (in large part because a Free Church missionary had played such a large part in my finally coming to saving faith in the Lord Jesus). I've been a member of three local Ev Free churches in my 38 years as a believer and I have seen church discipline applied many times, to both congregants and to two of our pastors (one a senior pastor and the other a youth pastor).

In a number of cases the congregants repented and continued on in church with us, but there were other cases (two of which included the pastors that I mentioned above) where those who were placed under discipline by the church refused to repent and were asked to leave.

God bless you!!

~Deuteronomy (David)

Never

I had to escort a witch out of the congregation as usher once. She was trying to cast a spell during the offering.
That was pretty weird.

Not sure how to answer this one!! Our Church firmly believes in these scriptures! (2 Cor 13:5-6 and 2 Peter 1:10-11) one year we lost 5 people! If the pastor himself is not discipline how than can the sheep follow in this?? we follow the rules of God's Word in the Church (Matt 18:15-17) The problem today is that most churches are not accountable to each other!

Hence why many young people do not attend anymore, it is sad. No Church is perfect! We have flaws like every church does, BUT!!! WE do CARE!!!! For each other!! We look out for each other to! We will not have the Lord take away our candlestick!
We have been disciplined by the Lord on occasion, we faint not we learn and move forward in our Jesus!

There is no fooling the Lord or us!! Some have looked to, but the Lord shows us who is real and who needs work on being more accountable!

I find it interesting that 154 people have viewed this Poll and only 3 responded. Does that have some answers in it? One might assume that 150 have never seen Church Discipline in their Church, or maybe 150 - pastors have been afraid to answer the question? Ya some will have viewed it several times, so maybe that's 2 times each, then 75 have refused to be transparent. Cut that in half and you have 34 that might admit the Full Council Of God has not been a norm. Step up to the plate y'all and let us examine ourselves.

What do you call church discipline? When and how should it be applied? What should be the end result of church discipline?

Scripture is clear. Matt 18 for starters. Love and reconciliation back to Jesus is always the goal. It should happen quickly lead by qualified Elders/Leadership, and follow the Word. If people will not submit, ask them to not come back to Church there.

Acts 5:11 (NASB95) — 11 And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things.

That's purification. Obey the Word, then let God clean up the dust.

You can't go by those numbers. Look at who is online right now:

Total: 2,422 (members: 48, guests: 2,374)

Only 48 members of almost twenty five hundred people total! Guests cannot vote or post.

I was looking at the intro forum the other day and was kind of amazed to see the viewing numbers there. Many had
close to 500 or 600 views, and one intro that had had less than one page of responses was viewed over a thousand
times. Something seemed remarkable about that to me, but I can assure you I have no idea what it means... .

Your poll does not allow anyone to respond honestly who has seen church discipline exercised more frequently.

I've seen it done badly far too many times. I've seen it done well exactly zero times, though I know it has occurred many times... because it has taken place either privately, as it generally should, or in limited company, which was proper for those situations.

I could rant about the ways in which it has been done badly, and perhaps I will if the thread continues, but for now, I will offer this:

Church discipline should always be done with three goals: to uphold the glory of God; to protect the spiritual and physical safety of the Church; and, to bring the offending person(s) to repentance.

For those curious, a woman walked in right after the service began.
Right before the preaching, the ushers pass the plate down the isles. When the plate eventually got to her, she stood strait up with the plate in hand. and loudly chanted some spell while moving her other hand in some strange gestures like an old scary movie over a cauldron. Then she shouted and the plate was taken from her and she was told to leave. We escorted her out and the preacher preached. Then We had our unscheduled usher's meeting after the service on some notes I made. We never saw her again.
I suppose some devil targeted our church because we were the only one in the city that was knocking doors to lead others to Christ.

We had other strange things happen as we approached VBSs, revivals and other evangelistic events. They were usually more of a hindrance than the simple witch trying to cast a spell in the congregation. The busses / vans would always break down and so forth.

Those kinds of attacks can be blessings as we look back because greater is He Who is in us than he who is in the world.

When I was in Bible college, we had a few who were attending the school.
Some became exposed to me over time, but prior to that were just another student attending classes.

Though not many in number when compared to the main population, I learned they are everywhere we go and much more subtle than what you were exposed to.

Some even post in Christian forums (usually as contrarians) after having learned the Christian way of thinking…

You can count me on the list of users who viewed this thread several times and didn't respond. It wasn't for lack of transparency though; I'm not a pastor and not authorized to discipline anyone outside of youth group and childrens' church. I was intrigued by your thread because a lack of discipline is why I left my last church. I haven't seen any public discipline at my current church but to my knowledge none has been warranted. From what I understand it usually happens privately, Matthew 18: 15-17 should apply here.

Regarding disciplining the youth, it's done privately whenever possible, but if someone acts the fool in front of the whole group sometimes we have to call them out on the spot. We try to go with the least amount needed to correct the situation, which has been my experience anytime God has disciplined me. It seems to work pretty well, but as with most things prayer is needed to find the right balance. And a few times God told me the reason a kid was acting out was too much correction at home, and what they really needed was encouragement. So I did that instead and it did seem to be the answer so I'm not going to argue with results!

I've exposed with God's help, a few who were placed in positions or in the process of becoming leaders in our previous church.
Those who entered our studies were found out with little effort. The gift of discernment of spirits includes special disclosure it seems. It isn't described in details in the Bible, so it's just an opinion for what it's worth.
I will share the gospel with them, but they are to be marked, avoided and excluded from the assembly.

Good comments and discussion. RE: Matt 18 - I world recon that that teaching is for all of us in attendance. I think Scripture is plain that we need each other to hold us accountable. One, to purify the bride, two, to set an example to the angles and world that we take seriously obediance to God's Word. That goes without saying that it must be done in love, wisdom and discernment. Case in point, if I know a brother in business who has defrauded someone, or an Elder who lies, I am required (with the right attitude) follow Mat 18 and more.

One female I had been suspicious of I tried to get to know better.
I invited her to pray with me for something...

When finished.. instead of saying, "In Christ's name."
She said... "For Christ sake." (like someone uses it when annoyed).
She refused to say, in Christ name as we all did.
She always gave me a strange dissatisfaction when talking with her...

Caught her one day while she was talking to my boss's young son waving a branch at him that she brought with her indoors.
I walked over. Took it away... and put it elsewhere. She said nothing.

More than that happened.
But there were several on campus that each had something feeling dead about them...

We've only had a couple of instances of the full-blown Matthew 18 church discipline process. But we've had to ask a handfull of people to take a season away from the church while they work on particular issues in their life of their family's before they can come back into the corporate fellowship.