I believe a "willful" sin is one that someone does without any remorse at that time. Whenever I sin, I do so with the grieving of the Holy Ghost. Is that definition sufficient?
I know some of these people may think would be extreme, but they are not "fruits of the Spirit", and need to be address accordingly.
Some have been excluded for "petty" reasons such as women not wearing a dress to church, women cutting their hair, women wearing makeup....for some reason, men seem to have a longer leash in the ORBs than women do, and that's not fair!! I hope this helps, and may God bless you!!
Non-attendance and non-support.
If it lasts for a significant amount of time, they've already disfellowshipped the church.
Removing their name from the roll confirms their own desire.
But some reasons I've seen proper church discipline carried out:
* teaching something contrary to scripture
* adultery that was blatant and not repented of
* transgendered lifestyle (man started dressing as a woman and seeing nothing wrong with it)
* drug use along with providing drugs to minors
Your list is in line with the example in Corinthians where Paul tells the church to exclude the man having an affair with his father's wife.
I do not know if you can go strictly by a list, but a sin of that magnitude maybe along with it being common knowledge in the community would be justification.
The steps in Matthew must be followed regardless of the situation.
Now, as far as the frivolous things people have been excluded for (how about investing in the stock market or someone dancing with their wife), to disfellowship a person for such nonsense is using a local church lead by Jesus Christ in an unspiritual manner, to be nice about it.
In reality, it is a sin that should be charged to the entire local church.
What is even worse than that, is making the disfellowshipped people repent for something that needed no repentance in order to be part of fellowship again.
Things like that have been tolerated in the past, and no doubt still go on.
It is up to mature Christians in each congregation to use caution in any church discipline.
Of course, disfellowshipping "a" particular church could have a lot different meaning than disfellowshipping "the" church. Removal from a "particular" church roll just doesn't seem to justify such a claim about knowing the intent or desire.
A number of good reasons for church discipline have been submitted here, but has anyone been in a church when a member was disciplined?
It hasn't happened in my church for more than 50 years (probably longer) and I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened in our association for more than 50 years.
Not at our church in over fifty years, and even when done, as I gave the reasons in an above post, the actions were totally unjustified.
Today, we only exercise church discipline in the sense of taking people who have not shown up in decades off the rolls.
The reasons I posted were cases of church discipline in our church in the last 14 years.
I thought of another one because of another thread here.
It was the case of a man who was .... not sure how to explain it but basically he was using prayer as a way to almost fondle women and he would not stop doing it even when it was addressed.
Eventually it came down to a discipline issue.
Point taken.
But in as many cases as possible, we seek to ascertain their situation.
If we can find them.
But after a year or more of absence, it doesn't require rocket science to guess their intent.
People who desire to attend, attend.
If they ticked off at the church for some reason, I can live with that.
But that rings hollow if they aren't serving somewhere else where they're not ticked off.
Was this done according to the steps in Matthew 18 or some other way?
What exactly were the consequences of the discipline?
Removal from the church roll?
Exclusion from coming on the premises?
Exclusion from holding any office in the church?
Admonishment?
Other?
Also, did any form of discipline result in the member repenting of his/her offense?
Yes, in each case, Matthew 18 was followed.
It's followed in many other cases but those cases were resolved without having to bring it to the church because there was repentance and restoration involved.
But in the cases I mentioned, they were removed from membership and not allowed to return to church until there was a step taken towards repentance and restoration.
In each of the cases, none of the offenders wished to continue to come to the church so we've not had an issue yet of anyone coming into the church after church discipline - unless they were looking for restoration.
In some cases, we would not allow someone to set foot in the church without escort (the man who was ... I'll say mauling women in prayer...would need an escort immediately and in the other cases, most likely a deacon would go up, welcome him then stay with him through his entire stay just in case there were problems).
But honestly, most who have gone through the full course of church discipline are so "offended" by it that they don't come back.
It's sad and we continue to pray for those who have left the church in this fashion.
We HAVE had restoration but unfortunately, not many once the full discipline is carried out.
:(
Yes.
He'd walk up to a woman and ask her to pray for him.
He needed prayer right now, "Would you pray for me?"
Then he'd put his hand on her shoulder.
And down her back.
Around her waist.
Etc.
He never actually touched private parts but I can say he tried it with me early on and I stopped praying and told him to not touch me.
I felt violated.
He looked offended.
:BangHead:
He got even more offended when my husband came over.
He was told to no longer ask a woman to pray for him - that he had to speak to the men instead.
He listened for a while then fell off the wagon.
Women started avoiding him.
It eventually had to become a point of discipline because he would just not abide by this and when it started with the teen girls, he had to leave.