Letter of Disfellowship from Church

The disfellowship letter is written when someone is ousted from a particular group due to committing some sort of sin or crime. It is a type of punishment letter that is written to let the other person know that getting involved in any immoral activity can result in dis-fellowship from a particular group. Anyone with some authority to remove someone from a group. However, these letters are written by churches most commonly.

The Church of Christ is a special type of church that is deemed as a place where true believers can go and worship although all the churches in the world claim to be the church of Christ. Many such individuals show their strong commitment to the religion of Christianity. They get membership in the church and take an oath to spend their entire life with the true essence of Christianity.

However, when it is proved that they are not showing obedience or they are the individuals who have deviated from their path, they can be removed from the church membership.

Who writes the dis-fellowship letter?

The authority to disallow someone is only in the hands of the church’s father or sisters. They are the people who have knowledge of the Bible, and they know how they can evaluate whether a person guilty of a crime deserves to be dis-fellowed or not. These things are quite close to spirituality and therefore, the decision of dis-fellowing cannot be given to the hands of ordinary people.

When to write?

When a person who claims to be a true believer of Jesus Christ is involved in something that is not in line with the religion of Christianity, he or she will have to face investigation and interrogation. After all the questioning, if a person is found guilty, he is given a specific period in which he can decide to repent. If a person repents and seeks forgiveness, he is given one more chance by the church authorities.

However, if a person does not repent and it is evident that he does not feel that he has done anything wrong, he does not deserve to be forgiven and therefore, he is dis-fellowed.

Sometimes, a person is asked to visit the church and justify his wrongdoing, if that person does not show up and does not give a reason for not showing up, it means that he wants to escape and, in this situation, also, the church decides to write him a disfellowship letter.

How to write?

Some people don’t know how to write the disfellowship letter as it requires them to be a little rude and harsh. However, they can also write this letter without being rude if they focus on the content also. Here is how you can outline the content:

Start with the news of disfellowship:

Right after starting the letter, inform the reader that he is being disallowed from the Christ Church after being a member of the church for quite a long time.

State the reason:

This part of the letter needs your attention as it is the longest part. You will have to mention all the disobedient acts of the person which have been proven. Again, state that a true believer and son of God cannot be expected to behave in such a way. Also tell that the person has not repented in the given time frame and therefore, he is being ”dis fellowed”.

Tell the consequences.

Mention what he should expect from the authorities of the church after he has been disfellowed and tell him whether this decision of the church is reversible or not. If there are some more bad consequences, they can be discussed. For example, a person who has been disfellowed will never want his kids to be disfellowed. However, some churches never give membership to the kids of a person who does not have a good reputation. He should be aware of such consequences so that he can choose to seek forgiveness.

Invite him for discussion:

In some cases, you don’t want the reader to be disfellowed because you know that he is a good person, and therefore, he should not be punished by taking such a hard decision. So, you can invite him to come forward and have some meaningful discussions with the church authorities.

Samples

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