as we have taken a couple weeks off of our class and we'll be resuming class tonight and then also concluding our counseling exam class next week, Sunday, where we'll look at the case studies of the ACBC Counseling Exam questions. But I'm so glad you joined us tonight. Thankful for our time together.

Tonight, we're gonna be looking at two very important topics. We'll be looking at Counseling Exam number 10 and Counseling Exam number 11. And those are the questions dealing with church discipline and also the role of confidentiality in the counseling relationship. And really the two subjects go together, church discipline and confidentiality.

And I think we'll see some connections tonight as we look at these topics. But I'm so glad that you joined us and trust that our study tonight will be an encouragement to you and that you will pursue further equipping in the ministry of biblical counseling. So with that said, let me pray for us.

Let's devote our time to Lord and let's ask the Lord to bless our time together. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for our study tonight and thank you that we can come to your word, that we can seek to place ourselves underneath the authority of the scriptures. And we thank you for your gracious rule and over our lives.

We pray that as we look tonight at these very important topics that you will help us to think clearly about the ministry of church discipline, what it is not and what it is. And then Father, as we look at the topic of confidentiality, we pray that you would make us discreet counselors, counselors who know what to do with sensitive information and yet help us to understand the limitations of confidentiality so that we would be wise in how we handle information in the counseling ministry.

Thank you for each of my brothers and sisters joining us tonight on this Zoom webinar. We pray that, Father, you would bless our study together and we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, as I said, we are looking tonight at counseling exam number 10, which is a exam question dealing with the subject of church discipline.

And I'll go ahead and read the question. It says, describe the role you believe church discipline should play in biblical counseling. We, as biblical counselors, hold to a view of counseling ministry, which says that counseling is a ministry of the local church and therefore we place our ministry under the authority of the local church.

We place our ministry in accountability to the governance structure of the local church and therefore we understand that the church is called to exercise the ministry of church discipline. Therefore, counseling ministry and church discipline do go hand in hand. Practically speaking, what this means is that you and I in counseling ministry may be working with a counselee who is engaged in unrepentant, ongoing, clear sin issues, and that counselee may need to be disciplined by the church as a means of bringing that person to repentance.

Obviously, we want to exercise a lot of patience in this process. We want to exercise a great deal of biblical wisdom, and yet we wanna understand that because our counseling ministry is a ministry of the local church, that church discipline does have a relationship to the counseling ministry. Now, this is obviously in contrast to counseling ministries that are outside of the local church.

It contrasts our ministry with the type of counseling that goes on in the secular world. We hold to a church-based, church-centered view of counseling ministry, and so we do believe that the biblical counseling ministry and the ministry of church discipline do have a relationship with one another. Now, how and when that church discipline process is to take place is a judgment call that must be made by the biblical counselor in partnership with the pastor or the elder who is overseeing that ministry, and yet we do want to see the relationship between church discipline and biblical counseling.

And so on the first page of your handout, I do have listed a number of resources that might be helpful to you in writing this essay. I do wanna note that I believe this is a very straightforward essay. What you wanna do in this essay is give a very simple, straightforward summary of what you believe to be the ministry of church discipline, and then tie in the ministry of biblical counseling to the ministry of church discipline.

Show how the two relate to one another. This isn't really a trick question. We're not asking you to do a whole lot of bells and whistles as you work through this essay. We're just asking you to give a straightforward summary of the process of church discipline, and then articulate a view of biblical counseling that is church-centered and that relates to the ministry of church discipline.

Al Mohler has a very good article in the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology that's entitled "Church Discipline, The Missing Mark" that is free and that is available for download as a PDF, and I've given you the link to that as well as giving you a copy of that in your Dropbox folder.

A very good summary of church discipline is Grace Community Church's Distinctives. Their handout that they have on their website gives a very good summary of church discipline and how it is practiced in the church. It really is a short and simple read, and yet one that is packed with very good information, and I would encourage you to read that resource and make use of it.

A little bit of a broader explanation of church discipline is found in Bill Zimmer's teaching at the Shepherds Conference that is recorded on, I've given you the website there. It's entitled "How to Practice Church Discipline." He does have some questions and answers as it relates to the ins and outs of church discipline and how that's practiced, and I would invite you to make use of that resource as well.

And then I've included in your Dropbox folder a copy of the Bylaws of Kindred Community Church. I know that not all of you attend Kindred Community Church, and yet this is the copy of the bylaws that my own counseling ministry is accountable to, and I just wanted to give this to you as a resource, as a reference, to show how, at least in one example of the Kindred Counseling Center, how we operate in accountability to the bylaws of our local church.

Now, your local church is gonna have its own set of bylaws, and you are gonna have your own standards, and you might want to find out, get a copy of the bylaws of your church, but this is a copy of the bylaws of Kindred Community Church, and we do have in that copy of the bylaws a very detailed section on church membership and church discipline and member removal, and I would just give that to you as a reference.

For the last five years or so, I've taught the membership class here at Kindred Community Church. We walk through the bylaws of the church. I want prospective new members to understand what they are joining and what they are being accountable to. I don't want anyone coming five years from now and saying, Dan, you never told me that this is what the bylaws of our church state.

We wanna put all that information in your hands before you commit in membership, and it is clearly stated that to become a member of Kindred Community Church, you are committing to become accountable to the ministry of church discipline, and we even have a provision there that says that if you are in the process of church discipline, for example, if you are in step two or step three of the church discipline process and are heading to step four of church discipline, then our bylaws state that you cannot, at that point, resign your membership.

In other words, you are committing to be accountable to the church discipline process, and you can't get halfway through that process and say, well, I don't wanna be accountable anymore, so I'm not gonna be a member anymore of the church. We retain the right in that instance to continue with the church discipline process, and you must be a member in good standing in order to resign your membership of the church.

Now, thankfully, that provision does not come into play in 99% of church membership issues, and most of our members have a wonderful relationship with the church and operate in harmony with our bylaws and with our doctrinal statement, but we do want people to know that if you are becoming a member of a local church, what that means is you are becoming accountable in a public manner to live in a godly manner to uphold the testimony of this local church, and you are saying at the outset that, if God forbid, should I fall into unrepentant sin or if I should fall into severe doctrinal error, that I want the church to pursue me in love and to bring me in a process of restoration to repentance so that I may walk in holiness and in godliness before the Lord.

Obviously, there's all sorts of caveats. We're not expecting perfection. We're not holding people to an unrealistic expectation of spiritual growth, but we are saying that if you fall into severe unrepentant sin or severe doctrinal error, or if you become divisive or cause factions within the local church, then we are going to pursue you in love and seek to bring you back into restoration, into the fellowship, and that's what it means to become a member of the local church.

You are saying that I want this type of accountability, I desire this type of accountability, I want a plurality of elders to pursue me in love if, God forbid, I should fall into unrepentant sin or severe doctrinal error. And so I've given you the bylaws of our church just to give you an example.

Now, I realize that your own local church may have a different set of bylaws, but I just wanna give you a reference point and an example of how church discipline is spelled out in our local church. So our counseling ministry operates in accountability to the bylaws of our church.

So if we are counseling a member, we have the right to take a particular sin issue that is being discussed in the counseling relationship and widen the circle of people who know about that issue in a very wise and prudent manner. If there is an unrepentant sin issue that is going on in the counseling ministry, we reserve the right to communicate that issue to the elders of the church, and then we retain the right to have the elders deal with that issue in an appropriate manner.

And so at that point, if a particular sin issue goes outside of the counseling ministry to the wider elder board, and if the elders are made aware of that issue, then in a technical sense, it no longer is under the purview of the counseling ministry alone. It has become a wider issue that the elders of the church are now dealing with and need to work through.

And we reserve that right to be able to communicate that if we are compelled to by the scriptures. Now, again, in a balanced way, most cases do not need to go to the elders of the church. Most cases, we can keep that information confidential. Most cases, we can keep information that is shared in a counseling relationship within the relationship between the counselee and the counselor, but we do want that structure to be in place so we understand that our counseling ministry does have a recourse if a particular issue is not being dealt with in a biblical manner.

And so I put the bylaws of our church in your hands just so that you can have that as a resource. Now, just some general thoughts on page two on the issue of church discipline. And I've given you the quote by Al Mohler, where he writes that the decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church, no longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle.

The contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members with minimal moral responsibility to God, much less to each other. Without a recovery of functional church discipline firmly established upon the principles revealed in the Bible, the church will continue its slide into moral dissolution and relevaticism. Authentic biblical discipline is not an elective, but a necessary and integral mark of authentic Christianity.

So what he's saying there is that what we're seeing is not only the decline of the practice of church discipline, but really, as you survey the landscape here, we're seeing the decline of definitive church membership. You can't discipline a person if that person has not made himself or herself formally accountable to a local church, and that is why church membership exists.

In the counseling process, if we are counseling a non-member, what I'm trying to do is to bring them into membership in a local church. That person is not going to grow or thrive spiritually unless that person is living with a definitive commitment to a particular local church in which that believer can be held accountable for his or her spiritual walk.

And so I'm trying to move this person into a commitment to a local church, and that involves finding out if there is a credible profession of faith and understanding of the gospel, whether a person has been publicly baptized in obedience to the Lord's commands and so forth and so on.

We practice in our church a very defined church membership process. We want to distinguish between members and non-members, those who have committed in membership to a local church and those who are living in accountability with that local church, and we want to move non-members into membership so that they can be publicly identified with a local church.

Now, what that does is that creates a defined local church assembly of regenerate, baptized believers in Christ who publicly profess faith in Jesus Christ, who publicly give a confession of the gospel and are able to articulate the basics of their faith, and who are also saying that they desire to live in accountability with a specific governance structure within the local church.

Therefore, because we have a defined local assembly, we know who is inside the church, and through the church discipline process, we can place people outside of the church. And I hope that makes sense. You can't have a church discipline process if you've never defined who is in the church to begin with.

Who is it who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ? Who are the people who have been baptized in order to publicly confess their faith in Jesus Christ? Who are the believers who have committed to this local church in accountability and in a commitment to serve and to uphold the doctrine of the local church?

If you haven't defined who is the church, then you're gonna have trouble placing people outside of the church. And all of that relates to what Moeller is saying is what we are losing today is a robust ecclesiology, a robust view of the centrality of the local church, and a view of the church, which holds that the local church is made up of believers in Christ who are able to be accounted for by name, and who are able to be held in accountability to live a godly life for the glory of Christ.

And therefore, because we're losing that defined view of the local church, we are seeing today a weakening of the local church. Today, you see all types of views of the local church that if you get a bunch of people together in a room that have varying interest in who Jesus Christ is, and you can call that a church where scripture clearly teaches that the church is made up of believers in Christ, those who are regenerate, those who have new life, who've been born again by the spirit of God.

That is what defines a church, and every church needs to have some type of organized plan or structure or approach in order to publicly identify who are the believers in Christ, who have placed their faith in Christ, and who have committed to this local assembly in order that you may be able to hold them accountable and know who is inside of the church.

The Grace Community Church Statement says this. On occasion, a Christian will wander away from the fellowship of other believers and find himself ensnared by sin through ignorance or willful disobedience. It then becomes necessary for the church, and particularly its shepherds, to actively seek the repentance and restoration of that Christian.

As shepherds of the flock, the elders love the sheep and are also held accountable by God for their spiritual welfare, including that of the wandering sheep. As in Jesus' parable in Luke 15, verses three to eight, it is a time of joy both in heaven and within the church when the wandering Christian truly repents, one means by which the church seeks to lovingly restore wandering believers is the process of church discipline.

We'll highlight that point as we walk through this material, that the purpose of church discipline is restoration. We practice church discipline because we want people to be restored to a walk with the Lord. We want them to know the joy of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want them to walk in holiness and in godliness.

And so we practice church discipline in order that believers might be restored. Now, just a practical note here, as I've worked with the counseling ministry, it's really important that a biblical counselor understand the ministry of church discipline, because in many cases, you may be the one who practices step one of church discipline and has to move that process to step two of church discipline.

I rarely see, in fact, by God's grace, we have not had in the counseling ministry had to move a person all the way to step four of church discipline process, but that has always been in the picture as we have worked with certain counselees. The counseling ministry, as I've said before, is like the emergency room of the church's ministry.

It's where you get the most severe cases of those who are caught in sin or who are dealing with the consequences of sin, possibly dealing with the consequences of another person's sin. And so you just need to know what to do with that. And you need to have in your mind a framework for church discipline so that you may understand that you are not operating on your own.

You may get into phase three of ACBC certification and find a very severe case of unrepentant sin and not know how to proceed. And we will encourage you that you are to work with this counselee and to give the counselee scripture and to pray for repentance. But if through the process of counseling, if you have exercised patience and you have prayed and you have exercised wisdom and you've given the scriptures and have really given everything that you can in order to bring a counselee to repentance, and you're still dealing with a very hardened, unrepentant heart, then you do have recourse to take, to initiate church discipline, to take a person from step one to step two of church discipline, to bring that sin issue to at least to the overseeing pastor or elder of the counseling ministry.

And then if there is still hardness of heart to bring that counseling issue to the elders of your local church, and then trust them to take the proper steps to deal with that sin and seek to bring that person to repentance. And so we do want you to have a framework for this as you work with people who may be caught in some very severe sin issues.

Some key texts here is, of course, Matthew 18 verses 15 to 20, where Jesus says, "If your brother sins against you, "go and tell him his fault between you and him alone." If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. So that's step one of church discipline. Step two would be what Jesus says in the next sentence, "If he does not listen, take one or two others with you "that every charge may be established "by the evidence of two or three witnesses." Step three, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.

Step four, if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, and that is placing a person outside of the local church's fellowship. Jesus says, "Truly I say to you, "whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, "and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

"Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth "about anything they ask, it will be done for them "by my Father in heaven, for where two or three "are gathered in my name, there I am I among them." Who are the two or three that are mentioned in verse 20?

They are the same two or three mentioned earlier in the passage where he says, "If he does not listen, "take one or two others along with you "that every charge may be established "by the evidence of two or three witnesses." What Jesus is saying here is when you exercise ministry of church discipline, and as you go from private confrontation to semi-private confrontation, as you widen the circle there and you tell it to the church, there I am among those who are engaging in the process of church discipline, that what the church does in the ministry of church discipline comes with authority, comes with divine authority.

I won't read the entire passage in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, but just to mention that this is an example of church discipline, that Paul was encouraging the church at Corinth to deal with the sin that was in their midst, that there was sexual immorality in the church at Corinth, and Paul says down in verse 13, "What have I to do with judging outsiders?

"It is not those inside the church whom you are to judge. "God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." And so Paul was telling the church at Corinth, if you have unrepentant sexual immorality within the church that has become a public matter, then you are to take one who is recognized as being inside the church, and you are to place that person outside of the church through the process of church discipline.

You are to protect the purity of the local church, and you are also to place the offending person in a position where he or she will be realized the severity of their sin and hopefully be moved to repent of that sin and be restored to fellowship in the local church.

I always tell people who are considering church membership that if there is a severe consequence of being placed outside of the local church, if there are blessings lost in being placed outside of the fellowship of the local church, then you can be sure that there are blessings to be gained by being recognized as being part of the local church and being inside the local church.

You want those blessings, and that is why you wanna be committed to a church, involved in a church, and be formally identified as being a member of a local church. Galatians chapter six, verses one to two is another key text in the discussion of church discipline where Paul says, "Brothers, if anyone is caught "in any transgression, you who are spiritual "should restore him." That's the purpose of church discipline.

You should restore him, bring him back into the fold. How are you to do this? "In a spirit of gentleness. "Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. "Bear one another's burdens "and so fulfill the law of Christ." I think that's just such a helpful and very instructive passage as it relates to the ministry of church discipline.

We are to be gentle. Dear Christians, we are to be known for our gentleness. We are to be humble. Whenever we see someone else caught in unrepentant sin, we are to keep watch on ourselves and realize that by the grace of God, I am what I am. And it is only by God's grace that I am not caught in the same sin as someone else may be caught in.

And so this ministry cannot be done with a self-righteous spirit. We are to be loving, to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. I've seen examples of this, of elders, not only in my church, but in other churches who have been gentle with their sheep, who seek to restore and really plead for repentance and whose hearts are broken over the unrepentant sin of those who are under their charge and who go after these sheep, seeking to restore them back into the fellowship of the church.

And I've been stirred by these examples and have been challenged to be a better shepherd in my own ministry to pursue those who are caught in a transgression in order to restore them into fellowship with Christ and the church. And so that is a very instructive passage dealing with the ministry of church discipline.

A few comments here on what discipline is not. Letter A, it is not an unloving ministry. There is a difference between condemnation and loving discipline. Hebrews 12, verse five says, "Have you forgotten the exhortation "that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, "nor be weary when reproved by him, "for the Lord disciplines the one he loves "and chastises every son whom he receives.

"It is for discipline that you have to endure. "God is treating you as sons." Now the writer of Hebrews there is saying that there is a difference between the loving fatherly discipline that we receive as children of God from our gracious heavenly father that is painful to be sure at times, but that is meant to produce a harvest of righteousness in our lives.

There's a difference between that type of loving discipline versus the wrathful condemnation that a thrice holy God places and expresses toward unbelievers who live in rebellion against him. There's a difference between God's wrathful judgment versus his loving fatherly discipline of his children. And we need to understand that as we engage in ministry in the local church.

We're not seeking to place wrath and condemnation upon those who are going astray from the church. We are seeking to engage in loving, gentle, restorative ministry that seeks to bring people back into wholeness and in fellowship with the church. And so church discipline is not an unloving ministry. Let her be, it is not a punitive ministry.

We are seeking to not bring punishment, but we're seeking to express grace, the grace of restoration. You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. That means that we need to be walking by the spirit. We need to be filled with the fruit of the spirit.

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. And so we need to remember that the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. We cannot engage in church discipline with an angry heart, with a heart that is impatient with others, but we are to engage with a spirit of gentleness in this loving, restorative ministry.

And so we just need to be reminded that this is not a punitive ministry. I love how Jesus says in Matthew 18, verse 15, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. So don't widen the circle of those who know this information and it says, if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

That's beautiful language. There is that prospect of engaging in step one of church discipline and the brother listens and repents of sin. And Jesus says, you don't need to go any further. No one else needs to know about the sin issue but you and your brother. And if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.

You have brought that person back into fellowship. Now I'm sure, and I don't even think I know of all the examples, but I'm sure there have been cases in our own counseling ministry where a counselor has worked with a counselee who has confronted or who has brought to that counselee's attention a sin issue.

There has been repentance and humility and there has been restoration in that sense, a restoration in that counselee's fellowship with God and also with the church. And no one else needs to know about what has happened. No one else needs to know about the sin issue except the counselor and the counselee because step one has resulted in restoration.

And that is a beautiful thing when that type of ministry occurs. So this is not a punitive ministry. Lastly, it is not a disorganized ministry. You see the steps for church discipline, there's private confrontation, which then moves step two to semi-private confrontation, bringing one or two others along with you.

The one or two others may be an elder or pastor or maybe another counselor or another brother or sister in the church who is walking with the Lord. And so the circle widens to semi-private confrontation. Then there is church-wide pursuit, step three, which obviously would involve the elders of the church.

In a counseling ministry setting, what we would have then is step one may be a counselor working with a counselee who was caught in unrepentant sin. If there is a stubbornness of heart there, it may involve bringing another counseling in, moving counselor in and moving to step two, maybe bringing the counseling pastor into the discussion and going to step two.

If there is still hardness of heart and unrepentant sin, then the counseling pastor may decide to bring that issue to the attention of the elders and the elders may bring that to the church. And that would be step three. Jesus says, "Tell it to the church." The church then is to engage in a church-wide pursuit of that believer, seeking to bring that believer to repentance.

And if that pursuit is unsuccessful, then there is in verse 18, step four, removal from fellowship. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now, I do wanna mention here that Titus 3:10-11 does have a fast track, as it's been called, that may move a person quickly to removal from fellowship.

Titus 3:10 says, "As for a person who stirs up division "after warning him once and then twice, "have nothing more to do with him, "knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, "he is self condemned." And so with the particular sin issue of divisiveness, one who seeks to stir up division because of the threat that person is to the unity of the church, there is a fast track process there where Paul says to Titus that you are to warn that person once and warn them twice, and then that person can be removed from fellowship.

So you don't have to, with the divisive person, move through step one, step two, step three, step four, there is a fast tracking of that person's church discipline, which results in removal from fellowship. We also note in 1 Timothy 5:19-21, that in the particular case of elders who persist in sin, Paul says, "Do not admit a charge against an elder "except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

"As for those who persist in sin, "rebuke them in the presence of all, "so that the rest may stand in fear. "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus "and of the elect angels, "I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, "doing nothing from partiality." And so there is a public nature to the discipline of elders, and those who teach and preach the word publicly are to be held accountable publicly, and if they persist in sin, they are to be rebuked in the presence of all.

And so this is not a disorganized ministry. So as I encourage people in our church, there is a sweetness to the fellowship of the local church, there's a beauty to the fellowship of the local church, we welcome anyone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, professes the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we welcome extroverts and introverts, we welcome older people, younger people, we welcome mature people who walk with the Lord for years, we welcome people who are brand new babies in the faith who all they know is, "I was blind, but now I see." We welcome anyone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, you are welcome in the fellowship of local church, we will love you, we will embrace you, we will desire your spiritual growth.

But there is also a sense where please do not take our warm and welcoming spirit in the local church for a spirit of weakness. We will do as elders what we need to do to guard the purity and the unity of this church. If you persist in unrepentant sin and mar the fellowship of this local church through a divisive spirit or a factious spirit, or if you cause trouble for our sheep, or if you persist in blatant unrepentant sin, that mars the testimony of this church, then we are charged by God to deal with that sin issue.

And while there is a sweetness and a warmth and a beauty to our fellowship, there is also a severity to this that we expect you to live up to your membership covenant that you will not cause division, and that you will not cause trouble, you will not mar the unity or the testimony of this church.

If you are humble and if you are repentant, we will love you. If you are weak, we will seek to strengthen you. If you're discouraged, we will seek to encourage you. But if you are hard of heart, and if you come in and cause trouble, and if you seek to hinder the sheep of God from pursuing the things of God, then we will deal with you.

And in fact, in the bylaws of Kindred Community Church, there's actually a provision that states that the elders of the church are given the right and the authority that if we, through a judgment call, deem anyone a threat or a disturbance on our campus to the unity or to the fellowship of our local church, then we have the right to ask that person to get off the campus and the property of our church.

And we don't have to go through step one, two, three, and four to do that if we deem that person an immediate threat or disturbance to the church. And we have had to exercise that clause, thankfully not often or every week, but there have been occasions where a person has come onto our campus and has been disruptive or has been obviously divisive in our midst, and we have had to deal with that person.

And we will deal with that person because that is our charge as elders of the church, to guard the unity and the purity of this church. Now, I hope you know by now, if you've listened to me long enough, everything I say is gonna be balanced. You can be the weakest believer in Christ, and you are honestly, you're seeking to repent of sin, you're just struggling with sin, you're just being, you're just struggling to overcome a particular sin.

We will love you, and we will work with you, and we will be patient and gentle, and we will wrap our arms around you. But that's different from someone who is obviously divisive or who is continuing in hardness of heart. And so this is not a disorganized ministry. Now, I do have just to kind of underscore, and I don't wanna belabor the point here, but we have had occasions where we have had to practice church discipline in our local church.

And this is obviously a very sad and sorrowful occasion. We never exercise church discipline with any type of joy. This is one of the saddest occasions in ministry as a pastor to have to move to a step four of a church discipline process. And yet it must be done in certain clear occasions.

This must be done in order that the purity of the local church can be preserved. It must be done so that others may understand that they are accountable, that we may have a fresh reminder that you cannot be part of our local church and be involved in an ongoing adulterous relationship, and then expect that the church is not going to do anything about that relationship.

We're just gonna allow you to persist in sin and retain a membership that is in good standing. That is not gonna happen as part of our local church's ministry. We have to deal with those types of sins that mar the public testimony of the church. And so I just want you to understand that that is the structure underneath counseling ministry operates.

The counseling ministry operates in accountability to the local church's ministry and the elders of the local church are charged to exercise the ministry of church discipline. So what church discipline is? Letter A, an expression of humility. Jesus said this, right? That you are to take the log out of your own eye before you can take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Galatians 6, you who are spiritual are to be the ones who exercise this ministry. We never wanna exercise church discipline in a prideful or self-righteous spirit. As I mentioned, letter B, it should be accompanied with sorrow. 1 Corinthians 5, verse two, Paul rebukes the prideful arrogance of the Corinthian church that they allowed unrepentant sexual immorality to exist in their fellowship.

He says, you are arrogant, ought you not rather to mourn. Let him who has done this be removed from among you. And in 2 Corinthians 2, verse four, Paul says, for I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

I understand this as a pastor, a little bit of what Paul was talking about here. Believers who are hardened of heart, and this last year as we, in our own local church, had to exercise step four of church discipline. And to let you know, quite honestly, I was emotionally devastated by the prospect of one who is so hardened of sin that this person would not repent, even if that discipline process moved to removal from fellowship.

That there's no way to do this type of ministry without what Paul calls the affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears. It should be accompanied with sorrow, and yet there is joy when there is restoration. The goal should be full restoration of fellowship. As the Grace Community Church statement on church discipline notes, the goal of church discipline then is not to throw people out of the church or to feed the self-righteous pride of those who administer the discipline.

It is not to embarrass people or to exercise authority and power in some unbiblical manner. The purpose is to restore a sinning believer to holiness and to bring him back to a pure relationship within the assembly. John MacArthur writes, "The word restore simply means to repair something "in the sense of bringing it back "to its former condition.

"It is used of reconciling two arguing factions, "of setting bones that are broken, "of putting a dislocated limb back into its proper place "and of mending broken nets." That word is a very common one for knitting something together or restoring it to its original condition, and that's exactly what it's calling us to.

And so that is always the goal in church discipline. Just a note here on page five of your handout, I'm not gonna read through the entire bylaws here, but the bylaws of Kindred Community Church clearly have an article on church membership and then a section on church discipline and member removal.

The bylaws state that, "Discipline is an important aspect of church life "in preserving the holiness and purity "of the bride of Christ "so that we do not bring dishonor to our Lord Jesus. "Discipline may take on many different avenues "and follow different processes "depending on the type of sin involved, "its overt or covert nature "and the immediacy of the impact on the church.

"In scripture, we find discipline administered "in many different forms, "including but not limited to such examples, "sin or wrong between two believers, "the overt sexual sin of a man and his stepmother, "false teaching and divisiveness. "All sin will be dealt with "in keeping with the appropriate scriptural direction "and guidelines." So that is clearly spelled out in the bylaws, and that is an essential ministry of the church.

As I mentioned, as I've taught membership class here for years, I used to downplay this aspect of the church's ministry, almost feeling like, well, it seems so harsh. No one's ever gonna wanna become a member of my church. If I really emphasize this in the membership class, people are gonna turn away and say, "I don't wanna be a member of this church," only to find in so many membership interviews over the years, people who have said to me directly that I am so thankful that I get to be part of a local church that actually practices church discipline and that seeks to hold its members accountable.

I need that type of accountability. I want to be part of a church that has that type of accountability. And so I have found that there is a hunger and a desire of true believers in Christ who know that they wanna live a godly life, who know that they live in a sin-filled world, that they desire to be part of a local church that actually practices church discipline.

So at some point, I stopped downplaying it and started just emphasizing it, that this is what we do. We practice church discipline because we take purity seriously, we take holiness seriously, we take the church seriously. We will love you and we will seek to help you if you struggle with sin.

But if you teach false doctrine here, we will discipline you. If you engage in an ongoing adulterous relationship in our church, we are going to discipline you. If you defraud other believers financially in shady financial dealings, we will deal with you. We will practice church discipline for the purpose of restoration, but we will hold you accountable.

And I found that believers desire to live in a fellowship with a church that practices church discipline. So I do need to move on to counseling exam number 11, but what you wanna do in the exam number 10 is to write a very straightforward summary of what you believe is the church discipline process.

I would just encourage you to articulate a view of the four steps of church discipline, private conversation, semi-private conversation, church-wide pursuit, and then disfellowship. I would just encourage you to write out the steps and then the purpose of church discipline and what we're trying to accomplish in church discipline, and then articulate a view of how biblical counseling is a ministry of the local church and therefore has a relationship with the essential function of church discipline.

Now, let me move quickly to counseling exam number 11. I'm gonna skip this very helpful flowchart that you can find online from Bill Zimmer's "How to Practice Church Discipline." I found this very helpful. I'm not gonna have time to go over this, but he has a very helpful flowchart here that moves you step-by-step through the process of church discipline, and I believe you can find this flowchart online and have that as a reference for future study.

But let me move to counseling exam number 11 and give you just a brief overview of confidentiality in biblical counseling. The question is, describe what you believe to be the role of confidentiality in biblical counseling. What kind of commitment to confidentiality should a biblical counselor make? What biblical and practical considerations limit confidentiality?

What is the responsibility of a biblical counselor to report to civil authorities on matters of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and other illegal matters? How should biblical counselors cooperate with the authorities about these things? So this is an exam question about confidentiality and the limitations of confidentiality. Now let me just make a statement here, and this is from Heath Lambert's excellent podcast on the ACBC website.

I've given you the link to that in your Dropbox folder, but Dr. Lambert states that the Bible places limits on the confidentiality we can promise to our counselees. Now that is a very helpful statement, and I think this is really at the heart of the exam questions. As biblical counselors, let me just kind of state this and emphasize this.

We want to have discretion in how we handle sensitive information, and we want to be known for general confidentiality. If a counselee tells you something in a counseling relationship, you want to be known for your discretion. You don't want to spread that information to anyone who does not need to know that information.

You don't want to share that information with your small group or with your friend or share that widely in a churchwide prayer meeting. You want to do everything you can to build trust with your counselee, and that in most cases, in a general sense, means that you are discreet with information.

You know how to handle sensitive information. You don't disclose information to others unless it is wise or biblically necessary to do so. So you do want to be known for having confidentiality. You do want to be known for being trustworthy with information. And so as your handout states under letter A, the value of general confidentiality, Proverbs 10 verse 18 says, "The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, "and whoever utters slander is a fool." George Scipione has an excellent treatment of the idea of, in his article on confidentiality, that if you are a counselor who is taking sensitive information and then spreading it unwisely outside of the circle of those who need to know about it, then you are actually, can be slandering your counselee.

And therefore, you can do great damage to that counseling relationship. Proverbs 11 verse 13, "Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, "but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered." So know what to do with sensitive information. Know when you are biblically mandated to disclose it to others.

And in other cases where it is not wise for others to know about that information, keep that information covered. Keep, know how to handle that in a trustworthy manner. That's a very essential ingredient, a very essential characteristic of a wise biblical counselor. Proverbs 20 verse five, verse nine, "Argue your case with your neighbor himself "and do not reveal another's secret." So in general, you don't want to disclose information that you don't need to disclose.

You don't wanna be a gossip or a busybody as it is stated in 1 Timothy chapter five, verse 13. "You want to be a model of good works." Titus two verse seven, "And in your teaching show integrity, "dignity and sound speech." So you wanna be self-controlled with your speech and not share things that you don't need to share.

And there is great value in that. If you look at the top of your handout on page seven, this is from the ACBC Standards of Conduct. And the standards say this, "Biblical counselors must maintain "and communicate the biblical standards "for confidentiality." So we are pro-confidentiality in general. "Trust grows in relationships "where all parties have clear expectations "regarding the confidential nature of private information.

"Biblical counselors seek to maintain trust and integrity "by keeping personal information as private as possible. "Biblical counselors protect the reputation "of their counselees by avoiding reckless "and unnecessary disclosures of personal information. "Biblical counselors must also make clear "their counselees that a commitment to biblical authority "requires the disclosure of certain kinds of information "to certain parties." Now that's the balance.

In general, and I loved how the standards articulate in the beginning of that statement, that we are to be known for our confidentiality, and yet there are limitations to what we can keep private. "There are certain kinds of information "that must be disclosed. "A biblical commitment to protect counselees from harm, "as well as commitments to the authority of the home, "church, or state, may require disclosure of information "that counselees would otherwise prefer to remain private." So in our Consent to Counsel documents, I've given you a copy of that in your Dropbox folder, we state quite clearly that we cannot promise absolute confidentiality.

We will seek to practice general confidentiality, but we cannot promise absolute or strict confidentiality. We cannot guarantee 100% confidentiality in our counseling ministry. That's all stated and written, and the counseling must sign their assent and their agreement with that approach to counseling in order to receive biblical counseling, because there are certain cases where we must disclose information.

And so what about the limitations of confidentiality? This is from Deepak Raju's excellent blog article on strict confidentiality from the Biblical Counseling Coalition blog. He writes, "One of the assumptions that I was taught "when I first entered the counseling world "was strict confidentiality. "In strict confidentiality, "otherwise known as absolute confidentiality, "you, as a counselor, promise never to tell anyone else "about the counselee's promise.

"The counselee is taking the very risky step "of revealing his sin to you, "and he finds security in knowing "that no one else will ever know his junk." Now, the question is, can we promise strict confidentiality? Deepak Raju argues that the answer is no. He says that strict confidentiality is not possible for Christians who practice counseling in the context of a local church.

If a person is not willing to repent of a sin, the counselor must eventually expose the sinner to the church. If we are going to follow the ethics of the Bible, it is not an option for us to conceal an unrepentant sinner's sin. Granted, many of us, as counselors, will persevere for a long time, exhorting, persuading, pleading with a sinner to turn, but if he or she does not, we're left with one or two options, bring a second witness, and then bring it to the church.

And so you see the connection between church discipline, and which is exam question number 10, and confidentiality, which is exam question number 11. We practice confidentiality unless we are compelled to, by scripture, to widen the circle of information. And one of the cases in which we must widen the circle of those who know about the issue is if we are following Matthew 18, verses 15 to 20, and engaging in step two of church discipline.

So some guiding principles which limit confidentiality, first would be submission to the elders of the local church, Hebrews 13, verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they're keeping watch over your souls, as to those who will have to give an account, let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you.

And so a counseling ministry operates in submission to the elders of a local church, and there may be cases in which the elder board of a local church needs to be notified of the issue being dealt with in counseling ministry. It requires wisdom and discernment to know when that disclosure is to take place, and yet, we need to understand that there is a limitation of confidentiality that is placed upon the counseling ministry because of that ministry's relationship with the elders of the church.

The second limitation would be submission to governing authorities, Romans 13, verse one, that every person be subject to the governing authorities. And so quite simply, if a counselee has disclosed the involvement with a criminal act, we as biblical counselors don't have client counselor privilege that we can invoke and say, well, we're not gonna cooperate with the governmental authorities because we have some type of client counselor privilege.

We don't have that type of privilege. We are to report to the authorities if a counselee is engaged in criminal matters and then cooperate fully with prosecution or ongoing investigation because we are submitting to the authorities as we submit to the Lord. And so there is submission to governing authority.

George Scipioni writes four principles of the limitations of confidentiality. Number one, confidentiality or loyalty to a counselee is the general rule. So yes, we practice confidentiality. Number two, when knowledge of crimes or potential crimes against God and neighbor come to light, the person must be exhorted to repent in order to restore or maintain biblically defined justice.

That's the Romans 13 principle. Number three, when exhortation fails, contacting the appropriate God-ordained authorities for further exhortation and discipline is appropriate action. These authorities are the family, church, and society, business, or state. I'd encourage you to read Scipioni's article on that. He has some case studies and illustrations of when it may be wise to disclose information outside of the counseling relationship.

And those illustrations are very helpful. I don't have time to get into all of that in our session today. Number four, a promise or an assumption of total confidentiality in all circumstances is inappropriate for counselors in general and Christian counselors in particular. That is making a promise that we cannot keep.

So if you look at our consent to counsel document, this is the document we use as an intake form for those who are requesting biblical counseling from our ministry. And you will note that it is clearly stated the examples of situations where we will need to disclose information. We write that confidentiality is an important aspect of the counseling process.

And we will carefully guard the information you entrust to us. We have taken pains in our counseling ministry to, we've probably gone overboard to even when it comes to documents and notes and just things that we write down as a result of meeting with a counselee to secure that information, to make that data as private and as secure as possible.

I've been told by others, Dan, I'm not sure if we need to make it do that much data security, but I'm just coming from a standpoint of we wanna carefully guard the information entrusted to us. And we do believe in confidentiality. However, we do not promise absolute confidentiality. Your counselor reserves the right to consult with other counselors or pastors at Kinder Community Church for the purpose of providing the highest level of care.

Additionally, there are times when counseling information may be shared outside the Kinder Community Church context. Those exceptions would include, but are not limited to the following, known or suspected child abuse or elder abuse of any kind, the intent to take criminal actions or violence against another person, active suicidal thoughts or intentions, other credible intent to harm self or others and matters of church discipline.

Counselors reserve the right and discretion to contact all appropriate entities when as a result of counseling, it is clear that a crime has been committed or is about to be committed or when the safety and welfare of any person, including the counselee is in jeopardy. The counselor is not required to notify the counselee in advance of any such contact with the appropriate authorities.

I think that's the good balance of general confidentiality as well as clearly stating the limitations of confidentiality. And I think that language is pretty standard in the biblical counseling consent to counsel documents. I've given you all that information in Dropbox. I hope you will make use of that and that you will write a great essay here dealing with both sides of the confidentiality discussion.

And I trust that you will be a biblical counselor who is known for discretion and for being trustworthy with information, but who is also wise in discerning and knowing the examples and the occasions to disclose information to a wider number of people. Well, I hope that was a helpful overview of counseling exams number 10 and 11.

I think you will find that those two subjects go together. Now, as I've stated in my email previously, we are gonna have one last class dealing with the counseling exams. And what we are gonna do next Sunday is we are going to walk through the three case studies that are part of the counseling exam questions numbers 12 to 20.

Now, there are eight questions that are related to three case studies. And what I wanna do next week is just walk you through the case studies, give you some foundations, some starter points to understand where to go with the case studies. But this will be, I think, a fitting conclusion to our class is to walk through the case studies presented to us, and then just give you a starting point, give you some foundations to be able to walk through those counseling examples together, and I trust that you will be blessed by our class next week.

So join us next Sunday, May 23rd at five o'clock Pacific time, and we look forward to that time. So let me pray for us, and we'll conclude our study together. Father, thank you for the church. We just thank you for the membership of the church, the purity of the church.

Thank you for the joy of knowing that we are not only privileged to belong to Christ, but to belong to his church. I just pray that you would bless our time as we study these important topics. Bless each student here, and I thank you for each one. Bless our studies this week, we pray,