A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

igated to obey her minister as the shepherd of her soul as long as he remains true to the pure teaching of Christ, If this should not be the case, the church shall call him to ac- count and admonish him. If the minister does not accept this admonition, he is to be deposed from his office and the office is to be given to someone more worthy. Mean- while the church must keep in mind that the minister who leads well is worthy of double honor.9 3- The corporate church body, not merely a few mem- bers, was responsible for the discipline of members of the church (and the nature of that discipline).10 Despite their scattering into small local fellowships, the Mennonite Brethren considered themselves as one church. Those in the Molotschna Colony, the Old Colony (Chortitza) and the Kuban, though far-flung geographically, identified themselves as one fellowship under the words of PauL "Let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing" (PhiL 3: 16). The designation, "The Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Church/' expresses the sense of being one united community of believers.11 The revived emphasis on faith, salvation and newness of life was a major point of reorientation for Mennonite Brethren as well as for the larger Mennonite community. Out of this grew a new awareness that the church was responsible for what happened in the life of believers following their profes- sion of salvation. The practice of church discipline was a nat- ural result of this heightened sense of responsibility. The church felt keenly a need to guard its corporate testi- mony and to discipline those whose walk did not conform to 42 MB UNDERSTANDING OF A NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH its understanding of scriptural standards. The secession docu- ment clearly expressed this: Regarding the ban, we confess that all carnal and repro- bate sinners must be banned from the fellowship of be- lievers, as Paul states in II Thess. 3:14-15, In the event that someone fells into carnal sin (God save us from it), and the Spirit of Christ, who alone can work true repen- tance, convicts him of his sin, so that he confesses and re- pents; in that case, the church has no authority to ban such a repentant sinner, because the forgiveness of sin is not obtained in or through the ban, but by the merit of Je- sus Christ. This was also Merino's conviction, as recorded in Vol, HI, p. 334 and 335- However, an unrepentant sin- ner may not be accepted into the fellowship of believers until he be genuinely converted to Christ.11 People beyond the Mennonite Brethren fold noticed