I had a friend talk to me recently about a mutual friend who’s walking away from God. This would be sad enough in and of itself, but she’s make a joke of Jesus in the process; celebrating her new found lifestyle, and expecting us to do likewise.
The issue is big enough that I was asked, “Shouldn’t we kick her out of the church?” I hesitated. It was a hard hesitation. Based on this woman’s unresponsiveness to a number of confrontations, the answer is sadly yes. My reason for hesitating however, from a pastoral standpoint, is that excommunicating this woman for her issue means we’d have to excommunicate 17 others in our church with the same issue.
Do I have an excommunication back-log? Have I been unfaithful in addressing sin issues in our congregation? I whimpered through the rest of the conversation and felt like a failure. Continue reading
Root48 