How to do church Part 8: time to be tough

To:   All Members <allmembers@mychurch.com>

From: Concerned Friend <ConcernedFriend@gmail.com>

Scandal

Dear members of the church,

It has been drawn to my attention that there are sex scandals going on, involving some of the members of the church. I’ve heard rumours of incest, a man involved in a sexual relationship with his stepmother. This would not be acceptable outside the church and certainly should not be within the church family.

Why have you not dealt with this? You must know, everyone knows, and yet you don’t appear to be doing anything about it. You’re above all that, it seems. You have a great reputation and don’t want a scandal like this to drag you down, so you ignore it and hope it will go away, is that it?

Why doesn’t this break your hearts? Why are you not confronting this man and dealing with this issue? He can’t be allowed to keep coming along as if nothing is happening.

I know I am not physically there among you but I am there in spirit. But I know that this is wrong. This man needs to be held accountable. if he cannot defend himself, then he has no place in the church family until he has dealt with this. This will be tough for all of you and potentially embarrassing, but surely that is better than turning a blind eye, which is wrong before God.

This is not a small thing. If you ignore it, it will grow among you and affect the whole body. A cover up will help no one in the end, including yourselves.

You shouldn’t be in fellowship with those who call themselves Christians but persist in sexual immorality. I’m not saying you shouldn’t mix with people with dubious morals in the world. That’s life. We live and work in the world and are called to love and serve those we mix with. But in the church, we cannot condone wrong behaviour – not just sexual immorality, but greed, corruption, deception, cruelty, exploitation, abuse…the list goes on and on….

But as for in the church, we are called to deal with all that we see is not in line with God’s way. Deal with it in love, yes, of course, but deal with it.

Yours sincerely,

A concerned friend from across the water

This message for us as church today was based on 1 Corinthians 5