Recently, our own church has gone through a very difficult church discipline process. It's one of those rare cases that would probably fall into the less than 1% category. This particular situation caused our own church leadership to reaffirm our view on biblical church discipline. Ultimately, it has served to strengthen our own understanding and give us a stronger foundation as we move forward it the future.
A basic foundation for church discipline really goes back to the Church's responsibility of protecting the name of Jesus in the world. We are to be "salt and light" but as Jesus said, "if the salt loses it's saltiness...it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet." (Matthew 5:13-16)
The problem is many people don't understand biblical church discipline and therefore, many churches today don't practice it. In fact, we counsel many people in our church counseling ministry who come from other churches; we love assisting other believers and helping people come to repentance and reconciliation. Unfortunately, not everyone repents of their sin. When they don't we are forced to make the recommendation to their home church that they need to take the individual(s) through church discipline.
Sadly, the response from their church is usually either:
(1) we don't want to mess with it
(2) we don't know how to do it
Rather than trying to "re-invent the wheel" and go into a lengthy explanation regarding the foundation and purposes for church discipline, I've decided to provide links to some excellent resources regarding church discipline.
The first resource comes from 9Marks: You can view it here
I read Nine Marks of a Healthy Church back in 2000 when it was first published. The book served as a wonderful foundation for my pre-seminary understanding of local church ministry. The outgrowth of that initial book was the 9Marks ministry. 9Marks continues to provide wonderful, solid direction and help for local church ministry.
If you visit their site you can scroll down and read a couple of excellent introductions to church discipline, historical & cultural issues, and possible legal implications. (be sure to notice the Table of Contents on the right side of the page to help you navigate through various articles)
The second resource is found on Bible.org: here
Bible.org provides a plethora of solid articles and Bible studies designed to help people grow in their knowledge and understanding of God and His Word. I am always leery of giving 100% approval of an organization because any man-made organization is going to have issues, but Bible.org would be near the top of my approved website list.
The third and final resource can be found here
Mars Hill church recently found themselves at the center of a very public church discipline issue. I know very little regarding the specific details, but in response they posted a chapter of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s book, Vintage Church, entitled, “What is Church Discipline?” While I probably don't agree with Pastor Mark on every detail of biblical doctrine, he is rock solid on what I consider the essential Christian doctrines and hits the ball out of the park in this chapter on church discipline.
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