re: Does your church practice church discipline?

There is a lot of guidance in your Bible.

Search for parts which give guidance in dealing with unrepentant sin and offenses committed against a person and/or the church.

Matthew gives us a process for dealing with approaching someone over a wrong. - In person. With witnesses. Present before the church. Disfellowship...

1 Corinthians has a good discussion of the concept of the process of prodding an openly sinful person into a correct relationship with God and the community.

Galatians describes the attitude to be cultivated in this process. Gentleness with a hope of compliance and healing.

2 Corinthians mentions bringing someone who has repented back into fellowship. Sort of like the prodigal son returning home.

The goal is repentance of sinfulness and renewal of fellowship.

But we are also told that having open sin pollutes the congregation. An openly gay relationship is an obvious example. Romans, Galatians, Jude and other areas plainly describe this behavior and relationship status as sinful.

A little bit of leavening spoils the whole lump of dough...

It must be confronted rather than ignored or embraced.

Hopefully, the non-denominational group can find what they need in the ultimate users' manual for Christians.

Church discipline is not optional. It is required.

My church is the great wide open, whether it be in my kayak on a river or lake, or on my motorcycle running some country asphalt, gravel, or dirt. And all I ever get from that church is peace and a closeness to God. It's never caused drama, never felt fake or corrupted, and the other parishioners, the wildlife of this great planet, have never once judged me for my beliefs.

I see zero reason to sit in a building with a bunch of strangers and listen to someone give me their biased interpretation of the Word while asking for money and giving some guy shite for who he is sexually attracted to.

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I'm pretty sure that's the message, but I'll look through the bible to try to find the time Jesus told the sinner to go away from him until he was clean and then return to hear his message.

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Paul absolutely told one of the churches (I can search for which group) to kick out unrepentant members. Someone can have whatever proclivities and inclinations they have, but if they are sins then they have to turn away from it. We have the Holy Spirit to enable us to overcome our sin. We should absolutely keep struggling sinners (all of us) together in the family, but we should never condone the sin or an unrepentant sinner.

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Does the word homosexual appear in the Bible at least?

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It was written in Greek. The term used is arsenokoitai, the context for this word was not debated until recently as those who read and understood it to mean sex between men. The debate recently is by those trying to dismiss it, not by saying it has a different meaning but just that we can't know what it really means. It's a disingenuous argument of those trying to adopt the world by claiming a grey area in the scriptures.

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Ramblin Wreck

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Everything you said, exactly!

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Church discipline is not optional. It is required.

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And this is why the definition of “love” is so misunderstood by non-Christians.

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I see zero reason to sit in a building with a bunch of strangers

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You would do well to read the Bible and seek understanding. This is answered directly — no reading between the lines.

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That is a wild oversimplification

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This from the guy trying a semantics gotcha on the Bible

Many non denominational churches are still heavily influenced by the Baptist church.

It’s like ND being a partial ACC member and pretending they’re not.