This post originally appeared on the Your Church blog, a resource of our sister publication Your Church.
The March/April issue of Catalyst Leadership focuses on the topic of “Crisis,” and features an interview with Ken Sande, president of Peacemaker Ministries. Ken also serves on the Ask the Experts panel for BuildingChurchLeaders.com. The interviewer asks Ken whether churches should be concerned with any legal dangers when it comes to matters of church membership and church discipline:
“We hear from pastors all the time who are considering disciplining a member for egregious behavior, but before anything can be done they get a phone call from an attorney threatening a lawsuit if the church says anything publicly about the member’s behavior. The average pastor tends to back off, and that is the end of that.
The church may have avoided a lawsuit, but they will have done nothing to restore the brother or sister in sin or to protect the church from further problems.”
The interviewer then asks:
“What are some things church leaders can do to overcome the dangers of using discipline?”
Sande responds:
“Take God at his word. The Bible consistently presents discipline as an act of love and redemption. We have to lose the cultural idea that accountability and discipline are bad things.
Next, realize that preparation is 99 percent of the battle. Most churches do not prepare their congregations for discipline until a crisis hits. You can’t just teach these things in one sermon. We need to be teaching about the blessings and meaning of discipline long in advance of a crisis.
It is also crucial to obtain informed consent. This is a legal term, and it is the only reliable defense against being sued. Informed consent means that the people in the church know what the Bible says about discipline, they know exactly what the process involves, and they have agreed to submit to the process, sometimes in the form of a membership covenant.”
You can read the full interview in Catalyst Leadership.
Has your church used discipline? Avoided it? What has it learned?
For more guidance on resolving conflict within a church, check out “Managing Church Conflict,” ($14.95), “Handling Conflict,” ($14.95), “Mastering Conflict,” (free), all from our sister site BuildingChurchLeaders.com.
