Sermon Illustrations
CHURCH DISCIPLINE
A man on staff with Chuck Swindoll got sexually involved with his secretary.
The church chose not to handle it in public, but rather deal with this
privately. The next year, 17 marriages of senior leadership people in
the church broke up! Paul is clear that when a leader sins, he/she needs
to be publicly rebuked so that others will be warned away from the same
sin.
Jack DeWolf, in a conference on conflict resolution
in Spokane, WA, April 30, 1994.
Statistics and Stuff
Any decision to hire such an individual (guilty of sexual misconduct
in the past) should be based on a full consideration of several factors,
including the following: (1) the nature and severity of the previous
misconduct; (2) the frequency of the previous misconduct; (3) how long
ago the misconduct occurred; (4) whether the minister received counseling;
(5) the competency and effectiveness of any counseling received; (6)
the prognosis of the counselor; (7) the likelihood that the minister
will repeat the same type of misconduct now; (8) the possibility of
legal liability if a jury concludes, on the basis of all the evidence,
that the church was negligent in hiring the minister. The same considerations
apply if a church learns of previous incidents of misconduct after hiring
a minister, since a jury might conclude that the church was negligent
in retaining the individual.
Church Law & Tax Report, March/April,
1993, p. 13.