Leaving the Church Part 4 of 4

Occasionally, rather than gently encouraging people to leave, we need to be more than gentle about it.

If you’re serious about what God has called your church to be about, at times—hopefully very few—you may need to directly ask someone to leave.

We’ve had to remove people on a few different occasions. In each case, they met with our leaders on multiple occasions. Our goal was always restoration and to keep these people in the church family. But when their rebellion continued after repeated warnings, we finally asked them to leave. (See Matthew 18:15-17)

Examples of those we finally removed include:

• Teachers who taught false doctrine
• A leader who continued in adultery and wouldn’t end his sinful relationship
• A man who made repeated sexual advances at women
• A person who stalked one of our staff members
• A convicted child molester who wouldn’t stay away from the children
• A person who repeatedly threatened bodily harm to another person

I’m sure this post will receive some criticism. But just because a person comes to church doesn’t mean it’s our role to tolerate their sin or rebellion.

We must love our people enough to protect them.