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Originally Posted by Brad  I have only witnessed excommunication once, and that very recently. It was announced in the midst of the sermon. Isn't excommunication both an act of love for the offending member AND a warning to the congregation? And since when should we design our worship to not 'scare' visiting non-believers? If that were true we'd never mention blood or sacrifice, either. |
To announce an excommunication in the midst of the sermon is both silly, and inappropriate in my opinion; probably the icing that an angry preacher would want to add to his sermon when it was designed specifically for that intent. Infact, I have heard something a lot worse being done with even more melodrama in a Vineyard church here in Edmonton, when an impudent attendee rose on his chair during the sermon and started denouncing the preaching. The pastor responded by telling him to leave the church and never to return. This type of informal and immediate excommunication is not surprising to observe in heretical Pentecostalist churches, where every professor, and especially the pastor will think himself to possess the gift of prophecy and tell truth apart from falsehood, or even to "deliver someone to Satan" as the apostle Paul did.