Timely post from Jonathan Leeman in preparation for my upcoming Missional Ecclesiology class taught by Gregg Allison of Southern Seminary. Church discipline is a difficult concept for many people to understand, especially at churches where membership and convenanting together means very little. It’s easy to be too firm, and easy to be too light. Here are some of Jonathan’s thoughts as to how pastors practice church discipline incorrectly.

1. They fail to teach their congregation what church discipline is and why to practice it.
2. They fail to teach about and practice meaningful membership. This involves cultivating a culture of personal discipleship and involvement in one another’s lives in which people transparently confess sin to one another. This also involves failing to adequately teach what membership is, as well as having a clear list of who is a member of the church and who is not.
3. They fail to teach their congregation about biblical conversion, especially the need for repentance. A congregation that doesn’t understand the role of repentance in the Christian life will have difficulty understanding why they need to discipline someone who is not repenting of sin.
4. They fail to teach new members as they enter the church about the possibility and circumstances for church discipline.
5. They fail to teach new members as they enter the church that the church may not grant a pre-emptive resignation from a person trying to avoid discipline. That misses the point of Matthew 18:15-20. Also, the nature of a church covenant requires the church’s consent to both enter into and leave the membership of the church.
6. They fail to ensure the church’s public documents (by-laws, constitution, articles of incorporation, etc.) address the procedures of church discipline, thereby exposing the church to legal risk.
7. They fail to follow the steps of Matthew 18 or 1 Corinthians 5, depending the circumstance. In a Matthew 18 situation, for instance, they fail to begin the process by confronting sin privately.
8. They don’t give adequate time to the process of moving through the various steps of Matthew 18. For instance, they move so quickly from step to step, that they don’t give the sinner adequate time to be reasoned with and shepherded toward repentance.
9. They call for the congregation to act too quickly. For instance, they fail to insert any time in between “tell it to the church” and “if he does not listen to the church, treat him as a pagan or tax collector.” Except in situations of a public scandalous sin of a 1 Corinthians 5 variety which do call for immediate removal, leaders should give the congregation time to both digest the information and to pursue the unrepentant sinner themselves.
10. They treat the processes of church discipline entirely as a legal process with little consideration for shepherding the unrepentant individual’s heart.
11. They give little attention to the differences between kinds of sinners and how that might affect how long we should bear with a pattern of sin before proceeding to subsequent stages of discipline (see 1 Thessalonians 5:14).
12. They forget that they too live by the gospel’s provision of mercy, and therefore prosecute the discipline from a posture of self-righteousness. Other mistakes follow from this wrong posture, such as an overly severe tone and stand-offishness.
13. They fail to truly love the sinner…
14. …and beg the Lord for his or her repentance.
15. They demand too much from a smoldering wick or bruised reed. In other words, they stipulations for repentance and restoration are too high for this one who has been deeply enslaved in sin’s grip.
16. They fail to properly instruct the congregation on how to interact with the unrepentant sinner, such as how to relate to them in social situations and how to pursue their repentance.
17. They fail to invite the discipline individual to continue attending services of the church so that they might continue to hear God’s Word (except in situations where the unrepentant sin is a severe threat to the church). Also, they fail to inform the church that everyone should hope for the disciplined individual to continue attending.
18. Putting the responsibility for leading discipline entirely on the shoulders of one man, the senior pastor. Doing so will tempt individuals in the church to accuse the senior pastor of personally vindictive. Such a charge is harder to make when a recommendation for discipline comes from an entire body of elders.
19. They fail to have sufficient elder involvement in the congregation’s life, such they are unaware of the state of the sheep. This failure of formative discipline will inevitably weaken the church’s ability to do corrective discipline well.
20. They fail to teach God’s Word on a weekly basis.
21. They allow the congregation to approach the case of discipline with a wrongful spirit of retribution, rather than with the loving desire to warn the unrepentant sinner about God’s ultimate retribution to come.
22. They pursue discipline on non-biblical grounds (playing cards, dancing, etc.).
23. They pursue discipline for any other reason than for the good of the individual, the good of the church, the good of the onlooking community, and the glory of Christ.

Then feel the weight of the responsibility by reading this list compiled by P.J. Tibayan, one of my brothers in Christ and a fellow Re:Train student. Thankfully, the Spirit equips us and it is not our own ability that makes us worthy.

One of the things that I really struggled with while at New Life Church was feeling like it was more like a campus ministry than a church because I believe a necessary part of a church is some form of formal membership, which determines the people for whom the leaders will give account someday. That tension between church and campus ministry is one often faced by churches, and students, in a college town. How much does a church resign itself to the transience of college students by not calling them to real membership? How much does a campus ministry separate college students from seeing a full view of the diversity that the church is called to model? How do churches, and campus ministries, challenge students to grow spiritually and equip them with the tools to find, and serve in, a local church after graduation? All of these are questions for which I have no clear answers. Pastor J.D. Greear of Summit Church in Raleigh, NC has some excellent insights on this debate, as well as a clear call to post-graduate missions work.

A church that doesn’t disciple internally and externally isn’t a church. Period. That said, what does discipling look like? I spent some time writing a paper on it for our first Re:Train class that I will eventually post someday. For now, enjoy these thoughts from Jonathan Leeman on discipling and friendship for pastors

1. Pastors have busy schedules, and frankly they cannot afford to become good friends with everyone whom they disciple. Still, we can generally expect that the discipling relationships which occur in the context of a friendship will have the highest impact. In other words, the amount of time I spend drawing near to a brother (immanence) will directly affect how far I can draw that brother toward Christ (transcendence)—all things being equal.
2. Drawing near to a younger brother in the faith doesn’t mean telling him everything about my life. Questions of his maturity and trustworthiness will help to answer how much I can wisely tell him about my life to assist him in the path of discipleship.
3. At the same time, I need to make sure it’s not my own pharisaical aspirations of looking impressive to the younger man which keep me from drawing near and being transparent.
4. After all, at the heart of what we want to teach younger Christians is the glory of the gospel and the pattern of a gospel life. If the younger Christians around me never see me demonstrate confession, contrition, and repentance, how can I expect them to learn it?

Ed Stetzer writes from Taiwan about why missional churches don’t do global missions but seem more interested in local work

1. In rediscovering God’s mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions.
2. In responding to God’s mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything “mission.”
3. In relating God’s mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.
4. In refocusing on God’s mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.
5. In reiterating God’s mission, many lose the context of the church’s global mission and needed global presence.

Ed then offered four principles to consider when putting the “missions” in “missional”

Recognize it is God’s mission, and we need to be passionate about the mission as He describes it. We don’t own mission and it is not ours to define. A church vision statement is fine, but God’s mission is better and bigger. Our first task is to submit to God’s mission.

Evangelicals have understated the call to serve the poor and the hurting and need a stronger engagement in social justice. This sounds counterintuitive if we are seeking to remedy the loss of concern for articulated evangelism. But social engagement entails relational engagement, and relational engagement entails opportunities to share the gospel. The successes and experiences in our communities should awaken hearts and minds to global needs. We just need to maintain the reason for social justice: the glory of God in the worship of Jesus.

Share God’s deep concern about His mission to the nations– that His name be praised from the lips of men and women from every corner of the globe. Feel the Great Commission in your bones. Ask God to turn your heart to those you cannot see. As Paul did, develop ways to “struggle personally” (Colossians 2:1) for those far away.

Churches that are serious about joining God on his mission will obey his commands to disciple the nations. The end product of missional endeavors should be a thriving Christian ready to produce more thriving Christians.

He closed with a great exhortation to never separate the Great Commandment from the Great Commission

It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense. It is a huge (but historically common) mistake.

If we are truly interested in being missional– in joining God on His mission– our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission. We are bound to the Great Commandment as the fullest human expression of God’s love. But the Commandment is not hermetically sealed off from the Great Commission. Rather, the Great Commission provides the what of mission, while the Great Commandment provides part of the how. Answering the age-old question of “Who is my neighbor?” should result in the desire to “make disciples of all nations.”