Church discipline is often regarded as the phantom menace of ecclesiology. It is a function of the church that is frequently met with a foreboding sense of dread, disdain, and drudgery — both by its givers and receivers. I think, too, that church discipline is sometimes reckoned as a ministry of the church that is discordant with the church’s true mission, which remains making disciples and baptizing them in Jesus’s name. (Mt 28:18–20) The process of church discipline is viewed as being in disagreement with the church’s commission to preach the good news to the lost. There are many, I think, that find discipline and the gospel to be incongruous, as if the church was enacting a spiritual guerrilla warfare on one of its members, subverting the program of grace. However, such notions regarding church discipline are entirely unfounded.