Tag: church discipline

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on November 30, 2018.

So last night I was closing up for the night at the coffee shop where I work, and there were these people sitting at a table who go to an evangelical-ish hipster church in my community.

I’ve seen some of their events advertised on Facebook and I talked to them when they were part of a protest this fall. Working two jobs means I encounter many people in different spaces and sometimes it overlaps because I live in a small community.

I had mostly good feelings about them. They’ve been very friendly with me and easy to talk to when they come into my store.

But I didn’t like the tone of this meeting. They told one of their worship team members that everyone is trying to make their lives less busy and more “intentional” and he needed to be off the worship team for a few weeks.

I have no idea what sin he allegedly committed. It’s probably not sexual, because usually the punishment would be longer than a few weeks. Maybe he didn’t read his Bible often enough.

The whole thing felt off and not good.

The leadership woman who’s about my age was confronting the guy with the pastor sitting beside her, and they got him to sign this paper about church discipline.

I thought I heard her tell him, “Now this doesn’t mean stop coming to church, because then you’ll never play on the band again.”

“For me to get on the platform and sing, there’s certain requirements I have to meet,” she said.

I just kept mopping around them, silently, slowly losing more and more trust for them. The words they used were harsh and I didn’t feel like they valued him. They kept making it seem like they were the spiritual ones and he was not.

I couldn’t hear the entire conversation, and I don’t know everything about the situation. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. But it’s a story I know all too well.

They told him over and over the pastor was there for him, and if he needed to talk to him during this period to please reach out, but that it was his job to seek help like he was this bad, lost person.

It felt like a total power trip. This poor guy was sitting there all shame-faced trying to survive this awkward situation, like he had no idea what they had planned to talk to him about. Like he’s just trying to not lose his community.

I’ve been in his spot before.

It’s disorienting to feel like your people are making you feel like you’re not a part of them for some perceived spiritual failing.

It hurt a lot to see people who are supposed to represent Christ treat another human this way. This is not what Jesus would do.

Note: After this happened, I asked two pastors that I trust if they would ever consider having a church discipline meeting with someone in a Starbucks. They both said they thought it was unethical and possibly humiliating to the person to have a meeting like that in a public place.

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I found an article about the impact of “time outs” on kids the other day. It reminded me of the way shunning is used in unhealthy churches… and about getting kicked out and such. I know nothing about kids and discipline. But as far as church discipline goes… this makes a whole lot more sense than what I’ve seen.

The article encourages that time outs be “brief… and previously explained.” That got my attention. My mind jumped to the time outs I’ve witnessed as part of church discipline–being told not to do things, not to interact… not to come for a certain amount of time. The norm in my former church was six months. These were not “brief,” and were not usually explained in advance. Actually most “discipline” in my former church was sudden and vengeful, without any warning… and completely unanticipated because they had no basis in reality, but in suspicion, rumor, and gossip. This type of punitive time out in the article is defined as punishing, hostile, and humiliating, done in anger and frustration but with no goal of growth or learning.

The article states that time outs were intended “to help children calm down so they can reflect on and change their behavior as part of a larger parenting strategy…” What if church discipline were intended in the same way? What if, if someone did wrong, they were “sat down” or “put out” in order to give them the opportunity to consider their behavior and change it, not through fear and shunning, but through love, support, and careful counsel? What if church discipline left those who must be disciplined and become repentant feeling loved and cared for rather than condemned? What if, as the article recommends for time outs, church discipline became a time of “reflection and conversation,” a time to consider spiritual and emotional states and reconnect, completed with a time of comforting, connection, and further reflection?

Time outs… being sat down or sat out. There are definite parallels.

Can you imagine making a mistake and instead of being condemned, rejected, gossiped about, and shunned–being loved, directed toward right, and reconciled?

Wouldn’t that have been amazing?

I overheard a church discipline meeting

Sat Down, Stood Up, and Kicked Out