'An Independent Baptist Church'

CHURCH DISCIPLINE

We believe that the Local Church must keep itself pure as much as humanly possible from sin among its members if that church is going to be effectively used by the Lord Jesus Christ to reach that community. If that local church is to maintain a good testimony before the unbelieving community, it must deal with those members who are involved in flagrant sin, especially those who are in positions of leadership or serving in that church in a public way...in the Biblical way...known as CHURCH DISCIPLINE. This process not only helps that church’s testimony before the community and keeps it pure before the Lord, it also helps come face to face with his sin and deal with it personally and be forgiven by the Lord. By dealing thoroughly and Biblically with the sin now, it prevents the sin from dragging that individual farther away from the Lord and possibly prevents the Lord from further disciplining that individual believer. The Bible process of church discipline helps RESTORE that fallen Christian to fellowship with the Lord and the rest of the church, with the goal of that individual serving the Lord again publicly at a later time....after a specified time of restoration and healing has taken place. If a Christian in the church is guilty of some moral sin, it would certainly require that believer stepping down from any public service, such as teaching, singing in the choir, ushering, etc. for a certain period of time as determined by the Pastors of that church. This not only protects the testimony of the church, but it also protects that believer from suffering more persecution from the public than he or she is already probably going to get anyway. If a worker in the church is guilty of persistent false teaching contrary to the doctrinal stance of that local church, it must be dealt with in the Bible way as well. Most of the time, false teaching is due to ignorance, and careful reproof and instruction can correct the problem. If, however, the individual persists and continues to take a doctrinal stance different from that church and its beliefs, that teacher must not be allowed to teach false doctrine to the people in that church, and must be removed from any teaching responsibilities. We must stress again that the whole goal of church discipline has the goal of restoring the erring or fallen brother to fellowship and service if that is possible. The attitude of the church should not be that of a policeman arresting a criminal, but that of a physician healing a wound before it spreads to death if left alone and untreated! We do not have a group of people who go around as ‘spiritual police’ spying out the sins of our members, but when flagrant sin is evident and obvious, it must be dealt with biblically.

We believe the process for this church discipline is outlined in the Bible in various passages, mainly Matthew 18:15-19; I Corinthians 5:1-5; that church has been charged or accused of sins such as moral sin, false teaching, sowing discord in the church, or wronging another person...that individual should be approached privately to confront and verify the incident, seek remorse and confession and any restitution or reconciliation that might be appropriate. If the particular sin involved removing that individual from their position of service in that local church for a certain period of time, then so be it. Each case would depend upon its own set of circumstances and the Pastors would be the judge of that. At the Gospel Center, the whole sphere of discipline lies in the authority of the pastors and most matters are dealt with privately in the way described above. We believe, in many cases, much harm has been done to the cause of Christ by requiring members to publicly confess their sins for the whole world to hear. There would be some situations as described in the Bible where very public sins among the church leaders and very public workers in that church might require publicly dealing with the matter, but even then we would urge extreme caution, especially with details. As we have said, most matters at Gospel Center have been taken care of privately. If the person was not repentant, we are told to go back to the person. If the person will still not hear you, the person would certainly be removed from any area of serving they held in the church, and this could be announced at the next church business meeting, which we believe is following admonition of Matthew 18:15-18 and taking the matter to the church in the business meeting. We have found that most erring believers in this situation have already left your local church by this anyway. Again, we stress the whole process of church discipline should be done in a kind, humble, meek way...(Gal. 6:1,2) with the goal of RESTORING and HELPING the person, not destroying them. We believe good, solid Bible preaching can PREVENT many problems before they occur, and wise actions by the pastors of a church can tactfully deal with many problems before they become BIG PROBLEMS for that local church.