Failure is inevitable in discipleship. From the beginning we were faced with leaders who came back from market drunk, leaders who sacrificed again to the ancestors, leaders who were harsh and overbearing, or, in one case, a leader who withheld several sacks of seed for their own profit that were meant to be distributed to those who had none.

 

The most encouraging thing is that (1) Failure actually has a way of growing the church, and (2) Jesus didn’t leave us empty-handed. The model of how to confront sin and church discipline in Matthew 18:15-19 has been foundational. There, Jesus gives a potential three-step process for winning back a brother or sisters who has sinned:

 

1. Go privately to the person and tell them what’s wrong about what they are doing. If they listen and repent, the relationship is restored! If not . . .

2. Go with someone else and privately confront them again. If they listen and repent, the relationship is restored! If not . . .

3. Bring the person before the church and confront them again. If they listen and repent, the relationship is restored! If not . . . they are to be considered an unrepentant sinner.

 

Many of the issues are solved at that first level. We always had to remember that our leaders were new converts as adult men with a lot of baggage. The gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16), but it doesn’t transform every part of the person overnight. We would find a leader coming back from market completely plastered or leaders sacrificing a thanksgiving offering to God. In the beginning, the people honestly had not figured Christianity out yet. No kidding! It’s a tough thing to learn. Our disciples learn many things we never taught them. But it’s never safe to assume someone you’re teaching knows something you haven’t explicitly taught them. In many cases, the leaders took our rebuke, learned, and grew.

 

In other cases, it was more than an information gap. It was an issue of affections: an idol. We saw this especially in one of our leaders, Emora. Emora has struggled with drinking as long as we’ve known him. Even after private one-on-one conversation we continued to find him stumbling back home. Another more intense conversation was needed.

 

As much as possible we tried to discuss the issues that were happening with close national partners ahead of time and then go together to confront the situation. Language and culture complicate things, and while most of the time there is some wrong to be addressed, our national partners are able to illuminate and communicate issues to both us and our Mahafaly leaders. That’s not to say we don’t play our part: national partners are also very reticent to directly discuss sin or rebuke it when it is necessary. Essentially, we have learned to be better pastors (caring for the sheep) from our national partners while they have learned to be better prophets (calling out sin and injustice). In Emora’s case, while we did confront him again alongside a national partner, it wasn’t long before we heard again that Emora had gotten drunk.

 

Enter stage three. We didn’t have to initiate anything with Emora. The church already knew what to do. One day, Emora was asked to talk with someone and found himself surrounded by the already gathered church. They told him what he was doing was shameful, it was disgracing God and their church, and he had to stop. Thankfully, this finally got Emora’s attention. Unfortunately, there are those who have taken the other route. The leader caught stealing seeds from others has never repented, even when confronted by his church. He still lives there in the same village, across the road from the believers. Yet, God has been faithful and raised up two young, but maturing leaders in his place and the church continues to grow.

 

The other passage that has been instructive for us is 1 Timothy 5:19-20, where Paul instructs Timothy to only believe accusations against a leader with two or three witnesses. However, for those who continue to sin, they are to be rebuked in the presence of the church, “so that the rest will be fearful of sinning.” This passage specifically goes against Mahafaly culture. It is a hard thing here to judge a man in a group setting. We know because we’ve had to do it.

 

In one case, it came to our attention that one of our leaders had been sleeping with a woman who wasn’t his wife. We didn’t really have to worry about the witnesses since he himself was the one who told us. But when it came time to officially rebuke him, Emora, who was leading the meeting, asked privately if they really had to bring it up in front of everyone. “It’s just not the way we do things.” We led him to read the above passage. “Well, if that’s what the Bible says then that’s what we’ll do,” he said. They did it . . . but it was probably the most awkward I’ve ever seen those guys. When someone objected and asked why we publicly criticized an elder, Emora said, “I’m not really sure. But the missionary said we should.” We read the passage aloud for everyone and everyone agreed they had to obey God’s word.

 

And that’s why we don’t freak out when a leader falls. Granted, it is one of the worst feelings, and you’re pretty sure everything is going to fall apart. But God takes Satan’s worst and uses it for our good. The churches have come out stronger in spite of leadership failure. Maybe it’s because they are emboldened by their own obedience. Maybe it’s because they are reminded Jesus is their first and true leader. But we can never let pragmatism or human rationale keep us from obeying God’s word or we will never see our church grow and mature.