Church Discipline

During lunch with Shenjun, he said something which really struck me. It was about the working of church discipline. A lot of times when i come across that passage on church discipline, i only think of excommunicating the sinning brother from the church. And in the contemporary context, it won't exactly work out as that excommunicated person can easily hop to another church. But it dawns on me that it is not that of physical separation. This church discipline works because the church is in fact a very close-knitted community where every one loves each other deeply. To excommunicate a brother from this community will be to exclude this brother from this community of love hoping that this pain will bring about a repentance from the sinning brother. At the same time, the community of brothers and sisters must also be feeling this pain and anguish in losing a brother, and should be begging, praying and imploring this sinning brother to turn back. Suddenly when i look at my tuanqi, i realised no... there isn't. Its unfair for me to say that because there was once when i did almost fell off the cliff when there were brothers and sisters who though not knowing the problem, implored me to come back. How i hope one day the whole tuanqi can become this close-knitted community where when one falls, the rest bleeds along with him. sigh... all have to start with myself.