removing a church family from church

[e lansing]

Praying For This Fellowship

thnak you brother Joe

e

[e lansing]

I would say you did well do remove them, as long as you followed the Matthew 18 approach, first one one one, then with 2 or more then before the congregation then removed from fellowship. If not done in this way it may have cause as much damage as the gossip and slander was before.

Praying for you as I know this is not an easy thing!

thanks

e

[e lansing]

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.

thanks onelight

e

[Isaiah 6:8]

I would say you did well do remove them, as long as you followed the Matthew 18 approach, first one one one, then with 2 or more then before the congregation then removed from fellowship. If not done in this way it may have cause as much damage as the gossip and slander was before.

Praying for you as I know this is not an easy thing!

thanks

e

welcome

[e lansing]

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.

you get it! thanks!

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.

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.

So just because we are sinners all can come to church and do as they please? Are these not already turned from the Lord with their blatant sin? So It would be fine If you went to church and found christians crackin 40oz beers in the common area carring on like its some kind of party? What about if women showed up in string bikinies? Now that pot somkin is legal, why not allow people to twist up, heck let the church provide the papers and pipes with "Jesus loves u" on the box of ziz zags?? WHy not WE ALL HAVE SINNED AND I GUESS WE CANT HELP IT!!! The church has now become the parking lot of every night club in this country! Great! What a way to reach them for Jesus! I digress, Thanks for sharing.

e

not trying to offend here, i have heard this all summer long by brothers and sisters who share your same sentiment and i understand your heart to a certain point, I think of Jesus fippin tables and wippin and kickin folk out of the temple, and Paul in 1 corinthians 5, eli and what happen to his son's, and all who took a stand for righteousness, im jus sayin. Again not trying to get nasty, jus makin a point, if this is offencive to any one I will remove it.

e

[Openly Curious]

name='e lansing' timestamp='1311477088' post='1699737'

Hello my extended friends, yea its been a while.

What Im looking for is just feed back, we get all types here so i want to run this by you all and see what say you.

A few months ago I had to remove a family from our church. A year ago had a young couple want to get married by me. I told them sure and sat with them to let them kow what needs to done in order for it to happen. At first they where good with what needed to happen. two weeks go by and I had not heard from them, i would see them and ask how is everything going, they said fine. Not to long after that we have our yearly fathers day outting I found out that they got an apartment together and had been living together for a few months now. I told them I could not marry them now. I still allowed them to come to church. The young lady has an older brother who has been coming to our church for years and was one of my leaders. I found out that he had been telling his sister that living together was not a sin, since they were getting married any way! I had no Idea he had this view. I talked with him and he just disagreed with not scripture to stand on. So I waited a while. During this time I find out that they are going to church members to discuss this and were dividing the church and people, new people would just walk up to and ask me about cohabitation and other questions about our fellowship, it was just odd. So I get an oppertunity to deal with both of these and asked them to stop speaking against me and our church, they refused, so i removed them from our church for promoting sin in their sisters life and causeing division in the church. I went to my pastors above me and they were divided on my choice. i have no regrets, but this was very hard to do. What say you?

I believe you did the right thing and the peace you have speaks alot as you said you had no regrets.

1 Corinthians 5:9, 11, 13 vs. 9) I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

vs. 11) But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat. vs. 13) But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

You have to protect the people of God in your congregation so none will go astray after this deception that there is nothing wrong with living together out of wedlock most that are co-habitating are engaging in fornication being sex outside the sanctity of marriage. So I believe you did the right thing stamping out this type of deception that is causing division and strife..

James 4:4

[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.

So just because we are sinners all can come to church and do as they please? Are these not already turned from the Lord with their blatant sin? So It would be fine If you went to church and found christians crackin 40oz beers in the common area carring on like its some kind of party? What about if women showed up in string bikinies? Now that pot somkin is legal, why not allow people to twist up, heck let the church provide the papers and pipes with "Jesus loves u" on the box of ziz zags?? WHy not WE ALL HAVE SINNED AND I GUESS WE CANT HELP IT!!! The church has now become the parking lot of every night club in this country! Great! What a way to reach them for Jesus! I digress, Thanks for sharing.

e

I think you got a little carried away there for I didn't say ANYTHING even remotely connected to your rant. You tossed sinners out. Are you free of sin yourself? I'm not and I can admit it.

[methinkshe]

I know of a young couple (friends of one of my daughters) who were living together and decided they wanted to be married in church. At that time they were not Christians. The Pastor (or Reverend - I think it was a C of E church, but, hey, who's bothered about ecclesiastical titles) insisted that if they wanted to be married in church they must first come for instruction. They did so and were gloriously converted - praise the Lord from the rooftops! From that time on, they stopped co-habiting and, although they continued to live in the same house (a multiple-occupancy lodging), they rented an additional room and thereafter slept in separate bedrooms. They are getting married this coming Saturday and my daughter will be a bridesmaid.

My point in recounting this is, I wonder whether the couple that you speak of are regenerate? Should they really be treated as "brethren" who have the Spirit of Truth living in them and therefore are living in deliberate disobedience to the Truth, or as unregenerate who do not have the Spirit of Truth in them and are in need of Him?

Maybe what they really need is to be truly converted so that Jesus in them by His Spirit convicts them, as was the case with the young couple I spoke of above; i.e. they are not in need of church discipline so much as the Gospel of grace and the conviction of sin through the Spirit of God within.

If it is a true saying: "by their works ye shall know them" (and I know it IS true) then does not the "work" of this young couple who choose to continue in their sin speak of unregenerate spirits?

Having said this, I am in no position to know the spiritual state of the young couple to whom you refer in the O.P. and it could well be that they are in disobedience in need of church disciploine for the sake of the whole body.

I pray that the Lord grants you wisdom and discernment.

Blessings in Jesus.

[Fez]

We had a youth leader who was "counseling" a young woman in my last church (about 400 members I would guess).

He was called to a meeting and admitted relations with her. He was asked to stop the relationship, and if they had any intention of marriage. He said he loved her, but not right now....

Separating them was not possible, even though he was asked to step down as youth leader. He was then asked to make a choice, stop the relationship or marry her. This went on for weeks while we prayed and met with both of them on numerous occasions.

The whole church was aware of the situation, and treated them as part of the congregation, (I am sure there was some judgment among some). In the end he chose to leave the church. She stayed on, and as far as I know still attends.

They are not together anymore, and found out that a high pressure counseling situation, vulnerable ego's, and a need for comfort had led them to where they were.

Had they continued, we would have had to take similar action that your church did.

I support the decision.