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Goodmorning pastor, If a brother in the Lord has ALREADY transferred his/her membership to a new testament church and what happend was that the new testament church in which he/she was a member before discpilned him/her,my question is: Was the Discpilinary action scriptural in which he has already changed membership? What is your stand about this?
Answer:
This is not an easy situation. When something like this occurs, there are hurt feelings on all sides of the issue.
We believe that the Bible teaches that the local church where a person has membership is the church that has the authority to discipline the member. The simple answer is that the actions of the church of which the person was first a member have no bearing because they no longer have authority in the situation.
These situations are rarely simple. There are different reasons why a church may feel that it has the authority to discipline a former member. The church may be unaware that the member has moved to a different church. The church may not recognize the member’s new church as being scriptural.
Though many churches no longer ask for a letter from another church recommending a member into their fellowship, these letters help to avoid these situations. One thing this process does is to inform the previous church that a person is moving his membership. This makes it easier to keep records. The other thing it does is provide an opportunity for the previous church to warn the next church of problems they might have with the member.
Churches often have different ideas about which churches they consider scriptural New Testament churches. If a member begins attending a church that the church does not recognize as scriptural then they may choose to discipline the member. In such a situation, there may be several different views about the validity of the church’s action.
As much as possible, we should try to avoid these types of situations. If a member is at odds with the original church, he should try to resolve the issues causing the situation. If that is not possible, he should be open with the next church and inform them of the situation. A church that is receiving a member should be careful about taking sides without knowing the whole situation. While a church may not have the authority to discipline a member after she joins another church, the reasons may be valid and when she moved to another church, the problem moved with her.
