Evergreen Road Church of Christ is located in the northeast part of the country and has a population of 250 members. The church is governed by four elders and employs one pulpit minister and one youth minister. The congregation is considered conservative among the churches of Christ around the country and has experienced little change over the past 30 years. 

Louise is a life-long member of the Evergreen Road Church of Christ and became a baptized believer at age 18. She is now a 30-year old single mother with a 4- year old son named Billy. Louise’s parents have been divorced for 15 years and she was almost entirely raised by her mother. Her father was abusive to Louise and the family in the early years of her life but was never around too often. At age 30 she still lives at home with her mother and rarely has contact with her father. Louise is 100 lbs overweight and has some small mental disabilities but is now able to work a full-time job and can drive a vehicle. Four years ago Louise willfully consented to premarital sex with a man with the sole intention of having a child. Louise has always loved little children and because of her low self esteem, she felt this was the only way she could ever have a child of her own. The father of this child has taken no part in the lives of Louise or the child after she became impregnated over four years ago. 

Ever since Louise was 15 she has been working with small children at Evergreen Road Church of Christ. For the past two years she has been the assistant teacher for the nursery class that takes place during Sunday morning bible school. Kara Stape has been the head nursery teacher for a few years now but primarily because she had a child who was of this age group. However, that child is now too old for the nursery and Kara has just given birth to another child. She feels it time to step down from teaching for a while. Her brother Keith, the education director, starts to look for a replacement and Kara encourages him to choose Louise. Kara tells her brother, “I taught that class because I wanted to keep an eye on my own child, but Louise is there because she truly loves all the children. She has led the class many times when I couldn’t make it and she actually does a better job than I do.” The education director, knowing how hard it is to find teachers, takes Kara’s advice and plans to ask Louise to be the head teacher. 

Joyce, a concerned member, finds outs that this is going to happen and approaches one of the elders in the church. She states, “Louise should not be allowed to be the head teacher of that class because she was involved in premarital sex four years ago and never made a public confession of her sin. We don’t know if she has sought forgiveness and frankly we don’t even know if she is sorry. We can’t let this type of person be in a leadership role of teaching our young ones.”

Joyce does a lot of work in her spare time around the church and is married to a prominent doctor who is also a member. They have five children under the age of 20 who are all active within the congregation and as a family they give a significant amount of money each month to the church. Needless to say, “losing” this family would be of great detriment to the congregation. 

The elder that is approached initially decides the easiest solution would be to get someone else to teach the class and continue to let Louise be the helper. Announcements are made during services to ask someone to be the head nursery teacher the following two weeks but the only person who volunteers is Louise. Even though she has volunteered, the director continues to ask people and does not give an explanation to Louise as to why. Regardless of their recruiting efforts, no one volunteered. 

What should the elders do?

SCRIPTURAL POINTS OF LIGHT

Galatians 6:1-10; Romans 14:1-15:7; 1 Corinthians 5:9-13; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 1 Corinthians 10:12-13; Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Ephesians 4:11-5:21