Customer Reviews

Transforming Community, The

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Mr. Lauterbach leads a very wise and discerning discussion of church discipline in Transforming Community. However, it is so much more than your standard church-discipline how-to book. Keeping the discussion and our hearts tempered by the glorious and gracious gospel of Jesus Christ--to whom we all owe every ounce of holiness, gentleness, and even our very lives--church discipline is put in its context. The legalism behind many attempts at discipline is shattered by the Gospel along with our fleshly tendency to be harsh, overbearing, and judgmental. Instead, the goal of discipline is repentance, restoration, and fruitfulness. This doesn't happen through programs, but happens with a pouring out of ones heart, bearing burdens in love, looking first to ourselves so that we might not be tempted. Discipline is gracious, yet firm. Discipline is not a one-time thing. The goal of discipline is repentance and restoration. Lauterbauch makes that very clear, understandable, and practical with his extensive and very candid use of anecdotal evidence from his life as a shepherd. His transparency, revealing both his great successful and dreadful shortcomings, lend credibility to his applications and reveal a level of wisdom that can only come with experience.
However, for me, the greatest change with which I have walked away from this book is a renewed desire to have intimate and true fellowship with those in my small group and church. I need the oversight from those that can watch my heart to ensure that I do not grow cold. I need to be watching others hearts to shepherd their hearts as they grow calous by sin before they become unrepentant. I want to transform the community that is my small group into a Gospel-driven fellowship of believers, lovingly and graciously driving one another onto more God-glorifying lives. Soli deo gloria.

When you have a heart first for the gospel and then it's application to people you end up with materiel that is radically different than what the world wants you to hear. Mark Lauterbach is a man of character and humility. This has been added to my "books every christian should read, if they get a chance" list.

Never before have I read or heard anything about church discipline that has the primary focus for caring about someone's soul. Yes Matthew 18 is important but how is it applied while not 1. blame shifting 2. victimizing 3. cold heartedly shunning? Mark explains how to avoid these things while glorifying God in the process. And so much more.

"I reflect back on my first course of action in discipline and believe I made the error of treating this one passage (matthew 18) as though it was the whole of Scripture."