removing a church family from church

[Fez]

I will refrain from judging your actions or theirs. I was not part of the situation and have no idea how the Holy Spirit was leading you. Yet, even though this has already taken place, I see an opportunity for a great sermon, one about gossip, division and the world.

I echo the sentiment.... was not there, don't know the full story, so will refrain from comment.

[e lansing]

Why wouldn't he marry them? If they decided to turn, repent of their fornication, want to do the right thing and be married, why would their pastor not marry them?

They would not stop living together and submit to my leadership.

I don't understand this. Is it a punishment? A penance? When a couple sins, should their pastor wash his hands of all involvement with them, regardless of the condition of their hearts? Surely I must be misunderstanding you. If a couple was unrepentant, I would think of greater concern would be the condition of their souls.

their souls are on top of the list, this is why we wanted them to stop sinning, they are in a sexual relationship, but they refused to submit.

First I would wonder whether they were saved or not, if they were able to fornicate with neither conviction nor repentance. In this instance, unless it is the habit of the pastor to marry non-Christians, I should think the pastor would not marry them, but instead to present the Gospel message to them.

they have confessed Jesus is Lord a year ago and were not living together at that time either. I cannot judge someones salvation.

Again I am wondering what you define as "drawing the line"? Not marrying them? Asking them to leave? And on which issue? The cohabitation? Or the inciting of division?

maintaining a standard. In mega churches people can hide this sin and no one will ever say anything to them. But in a smaller church of less than 100, its a bit harder to hide. I have dealt with young people who fall into sexual sin, we correct them and those who love Jesus submit and stop and we move on, others get offended and just leave the church. I believe that true love is never far from correction, meaning that we will correct those we love if we are in a position to do so, not because we can, but because we want the best for them.

Maybe the other pastors had those questions as well and that is why you did not get a response.

you know the saying, "maybe its better to agree to disagree"? I was along these line as to the no responce.

What would you have this couple do? Remain unmarried and celibate for the rest of their lives? I believe there is a bigger issue here and that is a salvation issue. If this couple have truly been born again, they wil repent/be receptive to repentance when shown biblically that what they are doing is sinful. If this couple is not receptive to repentance when confronted with the biblical truth of their sin, then they are not saved, and a bigger problem than their living arrangement looms at hand for them, an eternity in Hell seperated from God, which I know that as their pastor you care about.

Agreed! The choice is always ours to make, His way or our way.

e

[e lansing]

Wouldn't it have been better to marry them so they no longer keep living in sin than to not marry them and they keep living in sin? After all they're already living together, have already shared a bed so it's highly unlikely they'll move out, get married (I'm assuming even then you wouldn't marry them) then move in together again. JMO is all.

I understand your point, but I am responsable not only to the Lord but those i repersent and other members who know this is not right for christians. Since they would not follow my instructions i could not marry them. thay refused to follow my direction. I had asked them seperate for one month to go through counseling, at first they were fine with this but it was her brother who had changed their minds.

I didn't think cohabitation was a sin. Unless you are assuming they were having sex?

You are right that cohabitation is not a sin as in room mates, but these are more than just that, they are planning to get married and in that cohabitation is a sin, Paul calls it taking on the appearence of evil.

[e lansing]

Just a question - Is the church for sinners or for Christians?

I think of Christ eating with the sinners not with the Pharisees. You have no idea what the rest of your congregatiion is doing behind closed doors - are they the real upstanding citizens of the congregation that you think they are? Christ came to save the very ones that you asked to leave your congregation. I would have befriended them and got them to marry as soon as possible. It seems to me that just by asking the question you are not certain that you did the right thing as do others of your congregation. That couple could have been nutured into a ministering couple for your church. Why judge them as harshly as you have? I guess for me the church is for sinners who need to be shown the love of the Father.

I can respect your point to a certain point. Just because Jesus sat and ate with sinners does not mean He condones their sin. The bible from cover to cover is all about how man disobeyed, got judged, repented, and God restored. The issue from cover to cover is mankinds obedince or disobedience. God alway has a repersenitive that shows Gods standard to the people, its up to the people to choose. If God has no standard then there could not be sin and all would just go to heaven. At first right after this all had went down i did fell unsure about my choice to remove them, because I care so much about them, but they will always know that they were remove because they chose their sin over the word of God and their presence in our church was like a mocking of God in the church, and that is unacceptable. You have a great heart and a lot of people feel the way you do, but pastors are like parents and sometimes being one is not popular, but it is necessary.

e

[e lansing]

Just a question - Is the church for sinners or for Christians?

I think of Christ eating with the sinners not with the Pharisees. You have no idea what the rest of your congregatiion is doing behind closed doors - are they the real upstanding citizens of the congregation that you think they are? Christ came to save the very ones that you asked to leave your congregation. I would have befriended them and got them to marry as soon as possible. It seems to me that just by asking the question you are not certain that you did the right thing as do others of your congregation. That couple could have been nutured into a ministering couple for your church. Why judge them as harshly as you have? I guess for me the church is for sinners who need to be shown the love of the Father.

Hmmm. I didn't see your post before my prior one. You ask a great and interesting question. I think the church is for sinners who have come to salvation in Christ. I know many will disagree and from your post I know you probably will, but I do not think the Church (the Body of Christ and the fellowship and ministry therein) is for the unregenerate sinner any more than heaven is. The perspective of grace and American church culture from long ago to the present has given us this "church" equation that it is but it isn't what we see throughout the New Testament and at the birth of the Jewish and Gentile church in the book of Acts. The ministry that should be happening in our corporate worship services on the weekends should be focused on the edification and feeding of the Body of Christ (the Church). Due to the fact that we've fouled up the "formula" (if you will) of GO and make disciples THEN bring them into the fellowship, we have tons and tons of people sitting under preaching that means little to nothing to them yet they come to pacify a sense of religious obligation. And that they do, never really knowing salvation (if they really HAVE salvation as some may say they don't) and remain nominal Christians at best if they even are. They have never really dealt with a commitment to Jesus and experienced His love and know nothing of sacrificing themselves for Christ and are therefore motivated by their own agendas and cause MUCH of this type of distention that we are discussing here in this thread. If they are in the faith, they remain babes and never grow to maturity. We actually do them a disservice by placating them into a false sense of faith (that pacifying of the moral/religious obligation) that may be endangering their souls and we do ourselves a disservice by having our preachers boxed in to preaching a "milk" instead of a "meat" sermon from week to week just trying to evangelized the unsaved or "barely" saved if you will.

While I definitely see the heart of Littlelambs and others perspective and those points are well taken, I think the Scripture supports that the Church is for the Body of Christ. Evangelism should happen out in the markets, streets, fields, and taverns (where Jesus ate with the sinners and Pharisees). Proclaim Christ's death, burial, and resurrection there. When they are cut to the heart and cry for what they must do to be saved, lead them into falling in love with and a relationship with Jesus. THEN get them involved in growing into the deeper things of God and among a fellowship in which they can grow. At that time you will have people who walk in the power of the Living God as congregants. Should we ever get this right, we might not have to worry as much about what is going on behind the closed doors of believers and constantly be accused of being fruit inspectors and judgers. Joint WORSHIP would be drastically different in tone, power, and atmosphere. What a mighty vision that is!!

well said!

e

[e lansing]

MeLessHimMore, In a world of 50-100+years ago I would agree with you that you could get out there and minister to the lost. Today's laws do not permit it.

The more I hear of leaders in our churches, be they ministers, pastors, or other, the more I understand the sifting that is going on in our chruches. It seems as though it is the leaders who need the gospel preached to them. When pastors lie, spy and ask others to cheat. Or teach the feel good ministry and just want to get the people in, baptized and paying and others have churches run only by their families and no one else can gain any work within the church no matter how good they are or the minister is divorced, there is something wrong from the top down not from the people who are sinners and come in wanting to hear the message. How else will they learn? How will they be able to stand before the Father and say, 'I never knew. No one told me."

There is no better place for a sinner than in the church.

You are right, the church is the best place for sinners. I heard it said this way, "the church is like a hospital for sinner". We all come to get help on some level every sunday, we call it ministry. I agree that there may be something wrong with pastors all across the land, however, God has not called us pastors to perfection, but to faithfulness, to Him and His word. Its tuff being a pastor knowing that i myself am full of flaws and then have to enforce church discipline and people tell you, who are you to judge? I say I am not the one judging, but the word of God. The Church is not a club, or some association, its the church of the living God and there is nothing like on earth. Those who want to learn, will, and those who are there for selfish gain or trouble, will be removed or just leave.

e

[MorningGlory]

Just a question - Is the church for sinners or for Christians?

I think of Christ eating with the sinners not with the Pharisees. You have no idea what the rest of your congregatiion is doing behind closed doors - are they the real upstanding citizens of the congregation that you think they are? Christ came to save the very ones that you asked to leave your congregation. I would have befriended them and got them to marry as soon as possible. It seems to me that just by asking the question you are not certain that you did the right thing as do others of your congregation. That couple could have been nutured into a ministering couple for your church. Why judge them as harshly as you have? I guess for me the church is for sinners who need to be shown the love of the Father.

I'm going to have to agree with you here, Littlelambs. The church is for EXACTLY people like this young couple. Yes, they sinned but....who hasn't? I would be afraid that tossing them out might turn them from the Lord. Just my two cents and no refunds.

[~candice~]

The pastor of my first church was fond of saying "the church is the only organisation that exists for people that are not yet members". It was a highly evangelical church.

This is all well and good but I don't think it is right. The church needs to make disciples, not just be evangelical. Making disciples infers mentoring and raising someone up solid in the faith... discipline... to me it would mean there is a role in the church that is focussed on strengthening existing believers, like this couple.

Just my two cents and no refunds.

Thank you for brightening up my Monday.

[Smalcald]

A hospital is supposed to make sick people better not make them more sick.

I certainly would not want my Church marrying people who are living in sin, what does that say to the children and everyone else about what we believe? Would we marry a gay couple? Would we allow an avowed abortion doctor to take communion with us? How far do we go? If you are going to marry people living in sin this is NO different than blessing homosexual sin it is all the same. Christians who are having sex outside of marriage and living in fornication are no different than the gay activist who says there is nothing wrong with gay sex, and are unrepentant about it.

We are all sinners, but unrepentant public sinners cannot be part of our Church body, Paul has much to say about this in I Corinthians. Certainly we must welcome sinners because what the Church offers what Christ offers is forgiveness! It heals us our sins are totally forgiven, but if we reject forgiveness if we are unrepentant than the Church and Christ cannot forgive.

[Littlelambseativy]

A hospital is supposed to make sick people better not make them more sick.

I certainly would not want my Church marrying people who are living in sin, what does that say to the children and everyone else about what we believe? Would we marry a gay couple? Would we allow an avowed abortion doctor to take communion with us? How far do we go? If you are going to marry people living in sin this is NO different than blessing homosexual sin it is all the same. Christians who are having sex outside of marriage and living in fornication are no different than the gay activist who says there is nothing wrong with gay sex, and are unrepentant about it.

We are all sinners, but unrepentant public sinners cannot be part of our Church body, Paul has much to say about this in I Corinthians. Certainly we must welcome sinners because what the Church offers what Christ offers is forgiveness! It heals us our sins are totally forgiven, but if we reject forgiveness if we are unrepentant than the Church and Christ cannot forgive.

Smalcald,

But that IS the whole point - We are NOT perfect. We sin many, many times a day. Our thoughts of revenge, anger, lying (a white ilie), looking at another man or woman, on and on. We have to ask God to forgive US. It is for that reason that Christ said judge not lest you be judged and casting this couple out of the church and refusing to marry them is I think causing them TO sin. The chance of teaching them about Christ and having them in the church would have opened their eyes and shown them how to live a Christian life. The church could have been an example to them. It's as if they may lead others astray instead of leading them in the right direction.

Sometimes we Christians can be TOO perfect for a sinner to want to join us.