A majority of pastors in the U.S. have said that they have never heard of a case when a church member was disciplined for misconduct, a new survey has found.
According to the study by LifeWay Research, more than eight in 10 Protestant senior pastors said that no church member had been punished for misconduct in the past year. More than half said that they were not aware of a case when their church disciplined a member.
In the phone survey of 1,000 pastors, only 16 percent of pastors said that a member had been disciplined in the past year. Among those, three percent said the disciplinary action took place in the last month, five percent were in the last six months and eight percent occurred in the last year.
As many as 55 percent have said that no disciplinary action was taken against church members while they had served as pastor or before their tenure. Twenty-one percent said that their church had punished a member three or more years ago, while five percent said their church had handled a disciplinary problem in the last two years.
When asked about the disciplinary process in their church, only eight percent said that it lay solely with pastors. Fourteen percent said that the church elders should be responsible for the process. Four percent said the burden of disciplining members should be placed on trustees or board members, and only one percent said it lay with church deacons.
At least 18 percent of the respondents stated "we have no official policies in place for disciplining members," The Christian Post reported.
"It's one of the topics that churches rarely talk about," said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research.
He said church members were typically punished for refusing to acknowledge their misbehavior and continuing on with it, while church leaders were often disciplined when they were no longer qualified for leadership.
He surmised that some churches may have informal ways to deal with disciplinary matters and that some members may part ways with their church rather than be disciplined.
"There's some red tape involved for churches. It is not easy to be kicked out of a church," McConnell went on to say.
