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The Church and the Surprising Offense of God’s Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline is unavailable, but you can change that!

When the world speaks of “love,” it often means unconditional acceptance. Many churches have adopted this mindset in their practice of membership and discipline—if they have not done away with such structures entirely. “Yet God’s love and God’s Gospel are different than what the world expects,” writes Jonathan Leeman. They are centered in his character, which draws a clear boundary between what...

then, the weightiness of accepting members. Consider the weightiness of saying goodbye to those who move to another city; much more the weightiness of excluding them. If churches were to undertake such considerations, receiving members would be treated more like an adoption. “Are the child’s papers in order? Have all the necessary questions been asked by both sides of the adoption? How can we best serve and protect this child?” Saying goodbye to members as they depart for another city would feel
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