All are welcome, except...

Today's Wall Street Journal offered its readers an article entitled, "Banned From Church." The byline, "Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won't repent." The author shows instances where churches large and small across the U.S. are removing people from their congregations. "Pastors in churches across the country are expelling members for offenses ranging from adultery and theft to gossiping, skipping service, and criticizing church leaders." Yikes.

It raises the question about what is the church, a gathering of the saved and sanctified, a hospital for sinners, or a gathering of people who are in "bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves." As a Lutheran pastor, I'm biased toward the latter. Who among us after all is without sin? Who hasn't criticized a church leader, decided to worship at St. Mattress of the Springs, or found themselves engaged in gossip? Even the most spiritual Christians are prone to sin. Bottom line, we all need Christ and the church is a place where we all come to find hope, unconditional love and acceptance. What changes people after all? Being excluded or unconditional acceptance? How does God act toward us?

I worry that the church will become like the wealthy gated communities in America's suburbs where only certain types of people who can 'play well with others' are welcome. Let's be honest, life is messy and so is the gathering of God's people. The more we try and control the gathering, the more we risk becoming Pharisaical Christians and drift from the heart of God.

Clearly, any church leader will tell you (myself included) that there are dysfunctional people in every congregation and there are dysfunctional pastors and church leaders within the wider church as well. These hurting people hurt people. The question always is how do live faithfully together as a body of Christ, where there are emotionally, spiritually, and mentally healthy and non-healthy among us?

Most of the time we exclude, but don't expel people we don't like in our churches. This is equally as bad, but more polite, than the overt actions taken by churches to expel members. An article written about how we exclude members from our conversations, groups, ministries, sacraments, etc because of personality differences or past offenses needs to follow the WSJ article. As Christians we need to heed the tough words from Jesus as well as the ones that comfort us; words like, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

Is church discipline needed at times? Yes. But I believe just as a healthy human body tends to move toward greater health, so the church as Christ's body will do so. As the church and it's leadership are healthy as a whole, the unhealthy behaviors and activities will be naturally unwelcome without overt expulsion. Do healthy human bodies get sick? Yes. Then, and only then, wise, knowledgeable, and appropriate intervention from outside sources (e.g. a doctor for a human being) is needed. There are times that congregations needed intervention. Every church is imperfect just as our bodies are imperfect, and there are times consultants are brought in to help a congregation work together better.

Bottom line: We're all in this together. Let's pray for one another.

Where have you seen positive and negative examples of church discipline?