The Thirteenth Discipline: Formative and Reformative Discipline in Congregational Life

Perhaps the most critical issue for healthy, growing churches is member care or life together, in keeping with the biblical emphasis on allalon--"one another." Member care demands that believers be passionately concerned for one another's spiritual welfare and physical and social well-being. This mutual care may be expressed in different ways, but they are always to be directed to the needs of the members of the body of Christ. That is the approach taken by the author of this book, which focuses on what may be construed as a negative subject--discipline. The hope is that a careful reading will reveal that Christian discipline, seen holistically, may be a most rewarding ministry, one that brings many benefits to healthy, growing churches as it nurtures loving relationships among people who care enough to speak the truth with love, as Jesus did.

Lionel M. Moriah is Associate Professor of the John Gladstone Chair of Preaching and Worship at Acadia Divinity College, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia.