What "No perfect people allowed" doesn't mean
We've recently been criticized by a few people who say our motto (no perfect people allowed) is nothing more than an empty slogan. The criticisms have come as a result of us confronting a couple of people in our church regarding their sin (which we thankfully rarely have to do). The sin we confronted was out in the open for all to see. It was sin the couple agreed was occurring. It was sin the couple refused to turn away from and receive any help with. It was sin that was creating some divisiveness in our community of faith.
The criticism is: What right do we have to exercise church discipline on sinners? Our sign says, No perfect people allowed. We're all sinners, right? Who do we think we are confronting people and calling them to repent of their sins? And what right do we have to ever ask someone to leave our church if they refuse to repent after a period of time?
First, the Bible calls us to exercise church discipline when needed. There is Biblical teaching that clearly outlines the process church leaders are to follow. Read Matthew 18:15-18; 1 Corinthians 5:6-13; Galatians 6:1; Titus 3:10; etc. We not only are called to do this in the Bible, but we leaders are held accountable to God if we don't! Our motive for this is always love--to help the person(s) turn from sin and live the kind of life that God blesses.
Second, our motto "no perfect people allowed" isn't an excuse to sin boldly. It doesn't mean we go light on sin or say "whatever" when those around us sin. It means we acknowledge that we're all sinners. It means we all humble ourselves before God and each other, striving to become more like Christ. It means we come out of the closet, admit our sin, turn from it, get help, and grow. It doesn't mean I come out of the closet, refuse to do anything, and expect everyone to let me do my thing.
In John 8:1-11 Jesus shows us how to deal with others who sin. He cared about the woman caught in adultery. He treated her gracefully. But note what he said to her in vs. 10: "Go and sin no more." Jesus called her to leave her life of sin. He expected her to make a change. We are to do the same for each other.
Here's my formula:
Struggling with sin yet open to exploring God's counsel...OK.
Refusing to deal with blatant sin...not OK.
The criticism is: What right do we have to exercise church discipline on sinners? Our sign says, No perfect people allowed. We're all sinners, right? Who do we think we are confronting people and calling them to repent of their sins? And what right do we have to ever ask someone to leave our church if they refuse to repent after a period of time?
First, the Bible calls us to exercise church discipline when needed. There is Biblical teaching that clearly outlines the process church leaders are to follow. Read Matthew 18:15-18; 1 Corinthians 5:6-13; Galatians 6:1; Titus 3:10; etc. We not only are called to do this in the Bible, but we leaders are held accountable to God if we don't! Our motive for this is always love--to help the person(s) turn from sin and live the kind of life that God blesses.
Second, our motto "no perfect people allowed" isn't an excuse to sin boldly. It doesn't mean we go light on sin or say "whatever" when those around us sin. It means we acknowledge that we're all sinners. It means we all humble ourselves before God and each other, striving to become more like Christ. It means we come out of the closet, admit our sin, turn from it, get help, and grow. It doesn't mean I come out of the closet, refuse to do anything, and expect everyone to let me do my thing.
In John 8:1-11 Jesus shows us how to deal with others who sin. He cared about the woman caught in adultery. He treated her gracefully. But note what he said to her in vs. 10: "Go and sin no more." Jesus called her to leave her life of sin. He expected her to make a change. We are to do the same for each other.
Here's my formula:
Struggling with sin yet open to exploring God's counsel...OK.
Refusing to deal with blatant sin...not OK.
Labels: church discipline
posted by Pastor Phil Print at 9:07 AM
13 Comments:
Amen brother! I'm praying for you. Thank you for your leadership, thank you for leading in a biblical fashion. It makes a difference.
Chris Meirose
This kind of activity always makes me question intentions of the church and gives me feelings of awkwardness and fear.
Here are my reasons. Many “young” Christians and non-Christians enter our doors. Many of them are living in open sin in regards to the church. I do believe it is the Churches place to help bring people to God’s standards but it scares me to think that my struggles could cause me to pushed away from the church.
I personally am somewhat of an “open” glutton. I have recently failed in overcoming this awful sin and I sit here right now eating a needless breakfast sandwich (I already ate a bowl of cereal this morning) doing nothing about my sin. And all at the same time I can hardly imagine being pushed away from the church for this. Perhaps I am not ready to deal with my sin.
Now perhaps there are differences here: I admit my gluttony is a sin, I have tried to overcome it, I will try again (yes, with God’s help), and perhaps this person was a leader (at some level) in the church who should model true repentance. I guess what I am saying is that without more details of what made this situation different than me, I become scared or nervous about what might come of me an all the others like me.
And now that I am done with all this seemingly awkward rambling I want to tell you Pastor that I will be praying for you and your leaders. Even though I have almost ill feelings about this, I know it is something that sometimes must be done. It is never easy on ANY of those who come around it even if they aren’t involved. And in the end, you are right on with your Formula for “No Perfect People Allowed.”
dcb,
you feel remose and at least from the sounds of it are trying to correct your sin. I am willing to bet that if someone approached you offering help, that you would at least hear them out and not say, i dont care i am going to continue sinning. The point at which you say, I don't care about this, this is wrong, or screw what the bible says I want to live my own life, is when there starts to be problems.
For people who are seeking this really isn't an issue, but people who confess to be christian and claim to follow god can't really do that, if they wont accept his teaching. mind you not live out but accept and try.
Yes Ryan, I guess you are right about that and this is the difference. At the same time though, my heart still goes out to these people as they will probably leave the church altogether and have little chance of returning. It always hurts me to think of people being cast into the fire. Sometimes I become a bit of an over optimist :) Even as I child I used to pray for the Devil that he might repent because my Great and Loving God is so gracious. I know better now but it still hurts to imagine being so close to God and then so far away. With all this said, I hope we all keep these people in our prayers that they may see the error in their hard hearts.
We are praying for all concerned. We pray for repentance and reconciliation.
In Luke 17:3,4 Jesus says, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."
If the people in question came to us today and said, "We repent. We want help." They would be welcome and the church would break its back to help both of them receive the help they need. And then let's say they fell into sin AGAIN, but THEN confessed their sin and their desire for restoration and healing, once again they would be forgiven and the church would seek to help them. Let's say this scenario was played out over and over again, 7x in one day! We'd forgive and seek to help in healing and restoration.
But this is not what happened. Are we to ignore the scriptures Pastor Phil noted above? As pastors we are not afforded the luxury of picking and choosing which scriptures to follow...no matter how unpopular we become.
d.c.b..... The other primary difference (scripturally) is the "public-ness" of a particuilar sin. In the United States where individuality is so much the center of our mindset its hard to REALLY grasp the fact that as a local body of Christians we are spiritually living in REAL community. From my take on the scriptural passages relating to "Church discipline" I think it is from this Americanized mindset we greatly mischaracterize the spirit of "Church discipline"...i.e. we superimpose the "its all about me" mindset into scripture, when Biblically "its more about the US" as a body (and of course ultimately its about Jesus Himself...).
Church discipline in The Bible seems far more "pragmatic" as opposed to "judgemental", "restorative" as opposed to "exclusionary", and "loving" rather than "harsh". In fact it the Church discipline done in 1 Corinthians 5 seems to have worked by the time Paul wrote 2 Corinthians.
I think we all LOVE these people, I know I do in a personal way, but God takes guarding the purity of His Church quite seriously (just ask Annanias & Sapphira). Why wouldn't he? The Church is the bearer of the message of the Gospel; the one that literally saves many lives...however flawed any given local Church might be.
I'm even convinced that I am no more innocent or holy before God than they are, but my (and your) daily sins are not publicly on display when the body of Christ gathers here, and they do not remain un-repented, to the best of my ability...
d.c.b. you ARE correct, God's grace is soooo amazing and probably the most astonishing and powerful force in the universe, but it comes at such a HIGH PRICE, the very blood of Christ, so this amazing grace must never be subjected to public mockery either.
Crossroads is not in the business of "kicking people out" of our church. In the 15 years I've led CR as the Senior Pastor we have never kicked anyone out. We have confronted some people regarding their sin, and they have chosen to leave instead of being held accountable to do what they knew was right. We do this rarely, but we do it when the circumstances arise (circumstances that we as leaders keep as private as possible). The cirucumstances arose this past week. Once again, the 2 persons chose to walk out instead of facing the process outlined in Matthew 18. Dis-cipline is never pleasant. But we, like God, discipline out of love. We step in when believers who know better are boldly sinning. We're trying to give them a wake up call. Yea, it's tough love, but it's meant for their good.
Pastor Phil,
I know this was a difficult position to take but I am grateful that you did.
As a parent, it's a struggle to teach my children right from wrong when anti-Christian views, attitudes, and what society considers acceptable behavior is often contradicting how God wants us to live. It's harder yet when it occurs in our church with no intent to cease the behavior. What lesson would we be teaching our children, or adults for that matter, if we turn a blind eye to sin?
I believe that you have taught a valuable lesson to both myself and my children with your approach to confronting sin, offering aide to cease sinning, loving the sinner-not the sin, and ultimately not tolerating unrepentant attitudes/behavior.
I guess I'm not sure what to make of all this. What's the difference between the sin of the two people involved and any other sin? There are people at church struggling with alcoholism, drug addiction, pornography, etc. Not all of these people admit that they have a problem. Plus there are others that struggle with anger, greed, lust, etc. Again not all of these people admit that they have these sins.
Also, I'd bet that there are unmarried people at church that are sleeping together? Are we also confronting these people? Just wondering how consistent we are in this respect.
One of the things that drew us to Crossroads is the practical, Biblical based teachings. I applaud the pastoral staff for making the decision to face the conflict through Biblical guidance rather than take the easy way out and ignore/accept/etc. In cases in which the Bible speaks clearly, dismissing the Word of God just doesn't seem right to me. That tough live can seem contradictory to this world, but I'm reminded of Rev 22:18-19 in which it talks about not adding to nor taking away from the Bible. Again, when the Bible speaks clearly, seems we have to follow it if we truly want to follow God. I pray for all involved, too, and hope we all remember the focus is on God and His instruction for our lives.
I'm in 100% agreement with what you are doing. Yes, we all fall short but it is the willingness to acknowledge my sin and my wanting to have it removed from my life that makes the difference here.
My parents and siblings are heathens. Here's what happens. An athiest goes to a church and hears the good news of Jesus Christ. Then he finds out the pastor has a mistress on the side. He recognizes the sound guy as the co-worker who steals from his employer. He learns that the church men's group meets in a strip club and gets drunk up to their eyeballs. After the service, people stand around the coffee shop loudly cursing and using God's name in vain. The athiest then says, hey - this is a bunch of baloney. And so, you still have people leaving the church and never returning.
By the way, the athiest wouldn't notice the breakfast sandwich sin. All sin may be equal in God's eyes, but people tend to rank sin from minor to major, with the biggies usually listed on stone tablets.
A few people have asked some good questions about this issue. I, like some of the others, am uneasy about this.
There are also many things in the bible that make me uncomfortable. However the more I read the bible and the more I pray the more I realize there is a harmony at work that I don't fully understand, but I get to participate in it. Part of my faith is trying to abide in God's ways even when I don't fully understand them.
I am sure that our pastors would prefer not to have to ever excersise church discipline. They may even be as uncomfortable with it as some of us. But Pastor Phil pointed out that they are accountable to God if they don't. This is walking the faith as well as talking it. Thank you for doing this.
I am one of the imperfect people in the church. I want to please God but I fail every day. Yet he accepts me back every time I ask for forgiveness. I am made whole before God through Jesus. This offer is available to all of us. I truly pray that we all take it.
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