An Open Letter to Someone Entering Church Discipline
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Reposted, with permission, from bradhambrick.com. This post is a supplement to the “church discipline process” document/training posted earlier. The goal of this series is to equip churches to conduct church discipline with restorative excellence.
Dear Friend,
I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter. Frequently individuals in your situation have gotten to this point by one of two paths: (1) hidden sin has recently come to light, meaning you likely feel exposed and like everything is now moving very fast; or (2) pastoral care or small group care has stalled out, meaning you feel frustrated and are tempted to blame those around you for not being as effective as you believe they should have been to remedy your struggle.
Regardless of how you got here, this is a difficult and pivotal season for you. Difficult because of the significant emotions and relational strains involved. Pivotal because how you respond to the matters that prompted church discipline will significantly impact your spiritual, social, and familial (if married) life for years to come.
My reason for writing this letter is to help you engage the restorative care of your church in a manner that allows for the full redemptive effect that God intends. In the rest of this letter I want to address four common misunderstandings or complaints about church discipline that often distract the person under discipline.
- “I don’t think people understand how hard this is for me. Maybe I sinned, but this is still hard.”
- “This whole process has been a mess and I don’t think those who are leading it are doing a good job.”
- “I don’t see how this is ever going to work out well for me. It feels like I lose no matter what.”
- “What am I supposed to do? You guys seem to be making all the decisions and have all the power now.”
1. Possible Responses
It is likely you will experience a multitude of emotions on this journey. There is a false (but understandable) logic that says, “If this is for my good, then it should feel pleasant.” Church discipline is one of those good things for which the positive emotional outcomes often do not come until the latter parts of the process.
Below is an assortment of responses that are common during church discipline. They are listed to facilitate greater honesty between you and the church elder overseeing your disciplines process. You need to be able to be honest about what is hard without expecting the church to alter the discipline process.
Think of these conversations like talking to a trainer overseeing your exercise regimen or a doctor over seeing cancer treatment. You want these people to understand BOTH what is hard for you in the process AND remain committed to accomplishing the objective. You want your elder to understand BOTH what is making change hard AND remain committed to restoring a Christ-like character in your life.
- Exposed – The restoration process involves many people in your life in meaningful ways. In time, if you cooperate, this will be seen as an act of love and support. Initially, it often feels like coming out of a dark movie theatre into the noonday sun.
- Ashamed – It is easy to think that everyone on your restoration team believes “they have their life together” and view you as the “broken or dirty one.” This is not true, but it is tempting to believe. It is common to feel shame when your shortcomings become known. Be careful not to project that shame onto how you believe others view you.
- Rejected – Christians side against immorality. Since your sin has you under discipline, it can feel like your Christian friends are rejecting you. However, in reality, church discipline is a rescue mission – which is the very opposite of rejection. There may be social awkwardness, from you and towards you, but this is true in any period of adjustment and should not be interpreted as rejection.
- Lonely – The person coming out of addiction often has to break with “old friends.” The spouse who is unfaithful misses their adultery partner and experiences strain with couple friends. Various sins create unique forms of loneliness as they are exposed and forsaken. The transition away from a “false front” and/or “unhealthy friends” results in a transition that is usually marked by a season of loneliness. This is why the church has surrounded you with a restoration team; these people provide both accountability and wholesome friendships.
- Angry – There are many things to be mad about: people whose sin isn’t public, consequences that you don’t agree with, the challenge of making changes in multiple areas of your life at the same time. This anger is understandable. But vet your anger with one simple question, “If I do what my anger compels me to do, will it drive me towards a more Christ-like character that results in a more flourishing life?” Don’t let “feeling justified” in your anger prompt you to make decisions that will create more pain for you and those who love you.
- Hopeless – The season you are in now may be the darkest season because the early stages of church discipline are when old habits/patterns are strongest, new habits/patterns are weakest, uncertainty is at its highest, and healthy social support is just emerging. This is truly a “it is darkest just before the dawn” season. Be honest about how you feel, but trust the God who wrapped you in a church more than your feelings.
- Other – This list isn’t exhaustive. It is meant to do two things: (1) provide an initial list of common experiences to prompt conversations about how you’re doing emotionally with your supervising elder, and (2) provide an example of how to talk about how you feel without sabotaging or dismissing the discipline process.
2. An Imperfect Process
There is no neat way to address a messy situation. While this complaint is common, it usually is more of a product of the situation than those leading discipline. You cannot clean up on oil spill without getting grimy. Church leaders cannot work with hidden sin, partial honesty, incomplete stories, and broken relationships in a seamless fashion.
If you believe the process is not going well, the best things you can do are: (1) be completely honest, (2) cooperate fully and sincerely, and (3) share your concerns about gaps in your restoration plan in way that gives your church leaders the benefit of the doubt.
Your church leaders will make mistakes and the process will not be maximally efficient. But – even though this may be hard to hear – the situation into which they are entering is the mess of your making; they are entering your mess out of a motive of love and for the purpose of restoration. If your concern is more about the imperfect process than the problem that prompted the need for discipline (it will be from time to time on this journey), this should be a warning that your flesh is distracting you from addressing your sin.
3. Two Possible Outcomes
There are two possible outcomes to church discipline.
- You will repent of your sin, cooperate with restoration, and have your first love for Christ renewed (Rev. 2:4).
- You will not cooperate with church discipline, continue in your sin, and be removed from church membership.
How church discipline concludes will be based entirely on your choices. You will not choose option one or option two. You will choose to forsake your sin and embrace Christ or forsake Christ to embrace your sin.
What you choose will shape how you view your church.
- If you choose to forsake your sin, you will view your church as a loving family who refused to give up on you and did everything in their power to lovingly restore you to Christ.
- If you choose to continue embracing your sin, you will view your church as a bunch of legalistic idiots who just want to run other people’s lives and use the Bible to justify their actions.
Your choices about your sin will become the lenses through which you see your church. Again, your choices will determine the outcome of discipline and the trajectory for the rest of your life. My admonition to you in this letter is to not make these choices by passivity or happenstance. Soberly assess the choices you are making, what you believe honors God, and what cares best for those you love (Matt. 22:37-40); then choose accordingly.
4. Important Next Step
The previous point leads into this final point. I am going to assume that the choice you make in Point #3 was to honor Christ by forsaking your sin and cooperating with the restorative efforts of His church.
If that is your choice, I want to give you one piece of advice that is essential to bringing that good choice to fruition – be honest. No life of lies is worth living. Absolute honesty is the “one step plan of change.” Be honest with yourself, God, and others. Doubtless, lies took you into sin; only honesty will bring you out. You will never be more free from sin than you are honest about sin.
If I could give you one character quality to focus on as you seek to be honest, it would be stay humble. Sin does cloud the mind. Your interpretation of events (your own actions and the actions of others) is not to be trusted. This does not mean you are wrong about everything, but it does mean you need to be willing to be corrected about anything.
If you are honest and stay humble as you cooperate with the restorative efforts of your church, I genuinely believe you will look back and see this season as one of the best seasons of your life (not most enjoyable, but most beneficial). It will be hard, but it is also worth it. Love God and love those dear to you well by allowing God to do what He desires to do in your life in this season.
Brad Hambrick Bio
Brad serves as the Pastor of Counseling at The Summit Church in Durham, NC. He also serves as Instructor of Biblical Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, a council member of the Biblical Counseling Coalition, and has authored several books including Do Ask, Do Tell, Let’s Talk: Why and How Christians Should Have Gay Friends and God’s Attributes: Rest for Life’s Struggles.
- 136 views
An initial concession: it is certainly possible that along the way in a Matthew 18 process, the additional parties brought in to work with the offending brother may tell the offended brother, “You’re making a mountain of a molehill” or “You’re mistaken” or something like that. It’s certainly one of the benefits.
But I’m still wondering how you make sense of the “if he listens” / “if he refuses to listen” clauses. Why is the escalation predicated not on a verdict of guilt/innocence, but on whether or not the offending party is listening / not listening?
Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA
Perhaps we might infer that if the person demonstrates that his accuser is mistaken, the accuser just might stop the process right there. Moreover, if the accuser continues despite the accused having indicated that the accuser is mistaken, then the accuser is the person who refuses to listen. The process can continue, just with a different color.
Really, I can’t emphasize enough the folly of assuming that accusations are true. Sometimes they are—sometimes the evidence are that clear—but all too often, they are at least disputable, and that will in fact make Matthew 18 into a three phase beat-down.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I don’t think we ourselves assume that an accusation is true. That’s commonsense. Your inference is valid. Why would you try to get an innocent party to “listen to you”? You’d have nothing further to say.
But I think Matthew 18 is written on the assumption that the accusation is true, and gives instructions for escalating. The problem in view isn’t whether or not the offender is guilty, but how to deal with his recalcitrance. The project in view is restoring and forgiving an offending brother, not trying and retrying a case through various courts of appeals.
Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA
M. Osborne:
If “we ourselves” aren’t making an assumption of guilt, who is, apart from direct divine revelation? “Common sense” itself would not seem to want to frontload the whole scenario with a “guilty and recalcitrant” assessment of the accused. Deut 19:15 apparently does not prevent a basic one-sided approach by the accuser that declares he has been wronged by the accused, because his guilt has already been assumed. His refusal to “own up” to the one accusation of a lone accuser doesn’t sound much like rebellion, but (if he is innocent) sounds almost perfectly normal. Even more so in the face of the “grave admonitions” of the witnesses from whom he might well have expected “evidence” against him. So its still one on one as far as he knows. And evidently no one can or dare try and prove otherwise, so lets get on with what the accuser and the witnesses demand as punishment so the accused can be “restored” with no hard feelings.
Rolland McCune
No, pastors / church members don’t front-load particular scenarios with an assumption of the accused’s guilt. We’re agreed on that.
But, if guilt is established, it’s the offending party’s response that determines whether or not the process continues. If he’s repentant, the process is over, per Matthew 18. If he’s recalcitrant, you proceed with the next steps. So no, we don’t assume recalcitrance. We’re trying to discover whether he’s repentant or recalcitrant, which says more about his relationship with God than the original sin/situation.
@Bert, I’m curious why church discipline turns into a beat-down. Matthew 18 clearly says stop as soon as you get repentance from a guilty party. It doesn’t say “Proceed to the next step when you know he’s guilty.” It says, “Proceed to the next step when he’s unrepentant.”
In three cases I’ve been close to recently…we’ve were working with guys re: sins against their marriage relationship / sexual sins, and we kept it as private one-on-one counseling until they started failing there, brought in others to add to the accountability, and only brought it to the church when they were bucking against even that accountability. The purpose of Matthew 18 is to keep it as private as possible for as long as possible. We knew from the get-go that they were guilty…we had a combo of digital evidence and their own admission. The original situation sins are grievous; but it’s particularly grievous that as you start to apply the pressure and even bring in the congregation, the offending party is still lashing out / resisting. That’s when you realize how precarious they are, spiritually.
Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA
What/who establishes someone’s incontrovertible “guilt” so that the Matt 18 stages can kick in? This is what seems to be frontloaded to the passage and its procedures. What I see here is an assumption of guilt that jump starts Matt 18 and informs/controls the rest of the scenario’s notes of recalcitrance, the need for witnesses, the local church’s involvement and its verdict. Or is the accused brother’s sin not a private incident at all? But I’m not sure that two or three evidential witnesses give the matter a public context.
What would be result if the accused simply said to the accuser, “you are right, I sinned against you, I’m sorry and want forgiveness from God and you.” In his mind is a sigh of relief that he got the accuser and the whole incident off his back? Does everything stop there and everyone moves on with the accuser having “gained his brother.” Or is some indelible proof somewhere that the accused is insincere if not lying?
There appears to be a vacuous basis for determining true moral guilt here and a questionable, uncertain moral outcome.
Rolland McCune
What would be result if the accused simply said to the accuser, “you are right, I sinned against you, I’m sorry and want forgiveness from God and you.” In his mind is a sigh of relief that he got the accuser and the whole incident off his back? Does everything stop there and everyone moves on with the accuser having “gained his brother.”
It’s clear to me that — so far as this passage is concerned — the answer is yes.
But this is one passage meant to convey mainly one feature of the discipline process: what to do about non-repentance. The confusion comes from trying to get Matt. 18 to be more comprehensive than it is. It doesn’t address at all how guilt is determined.
The Deut. reference can fit either way, as I pointed out early on, referencing DA Carson, but everything else in the passage argues for a “guilt already established [by unspecified means] , but repentance not obtained” scenario.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I have great respect for Dr. McCune and differ with him only with great care and a certain amount of trepidation. I went back and reread his systematic on this passage. Yet I still have a hard time making sense of this passage with that rendering. I think his point, overall, is well-taken. We must not railroad people with a rush to judgment or a one man judge, jury, and executioner. But is that the point of this passage? This passage seems to me to be virtually identical to OT casuistic law.
For illustration, let’s pick at random, Exod 22:1 — “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.”
What if the man didn’t steal an ox or sheep and slaughter it or sell it?
Then this passage doesn’t apply at all. This passage only applies if a man steals an ox or sheep and slaughters or sells it. In such cases of theft, you do certain things that you don’t do if the theft didn’t take place. And this type of law from the Law could be repeated many times. The establishment of theft precedes the application of this text and that is what Deut 19:15 is for.
In Matthew 18, the construction seems the same: “If your brother sins …”
What if your brother didn’t sin?
Then this passage doesn’t apply at all. The actions after “sins” take place only if he has sinned. So in both Exod 22:1 and Mat 18:15, the apodosis is only enacted when the protasis is true. Thus, if the brother did not sin, Matthew 18 has no bearing on the situation.
Consider furthermore the steps in the passage. At each step (private, 2 or 3, church), the only two options are (1) listen and be restored (i.e., repentance) or (2) continue to the next step and ultimately be put out for not listening. This passage appears not to envision a situation in which the brother has not actually sinned. In practicality, it may be the case that the 2 or 3 determine there has been no sin worthy of public discipline. But again, that doesn’t seem to be in this passage per se.
There is no invitation to self-defense here, nor to explain it away. The time for that has passed, in this passage at least. Otherwise, what is the church supposed to say? If “hearing” means “defending yourself,” then the passage reads very differently. Why would the church put out a person for defending themselves and showing they haven’t sinned?
Raising 1 Tim 5:19 is a good comparison, IMO. There, an accusation is in view. And the truth of the accusation must be verified by two or three, or it must not be received. (Though elders seem to be given some sort of advanced standing here.) So, 1 Tim 5:19 seems to be the passage that precedes Matthew 18. Matthew 18 would be applicable only once the accusation has been verified by 2 or 3.
What is the point of Deut 19 in Matt 18? It may be to verify the sin. But it may be to verify the confrontation—that the matter was not brought forth simply out of spite and attempts to embarrass without first dealing with it privately. I am not troubled hermeneutically here, since the NT frequently uses the OT in a proverbial type way, that is, to apply a general principle contained in a statement.
To me, the “if” clause is too strong and too clear for me to ignore.
Practically speaking, it may be that a person might defend themselves. And I would have no trouble with that. But that is not really the situation that Matt 19 is envisioning, it seems to me.
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