I was involved in that one time where I saw it carried out to it's end, only one time, and hope to never be involved in it to that extent again. In fact, the time I was involved in it was also the only time I've ever witnessed it carried out to it's end.
It was a congregation member who had fallen into drug abuse and had stolen from two congregation members, of which I was one. He was also renting a room from a member and had the money to pay the rent, but refused to pay from the time he had moved in. I approached him one on one (as did the other victims) about the theft stating he needed to stop and to make restitution. He never denied that he stole, and never disagreed that I was right to expect him to pay for what he took, but he just flat out refused to do it. And he also continued to steal and to abuse drugs. I then got two other people from the church and tried to meet with him, but he refused to meet with us, so I wrote what I wanted to say in front of the witnesses and had them sign the letter as witnesses. I also quoted Matt. 18 in the letter and told him this was now the 2nd step of that process and asked him again to reconsider what he was doing and meet with us. I had the letter delivered by courier to make sure he actually got it.
He ignored the letter and the problems continued, so I and the other victims went to the pastor. The pastor called a congregational meeting the next week and made sure he knew about the meeting and why it was being called. Our attitude throughout the whole process was that this man was a Christian, or at least had professed to be a Christian so I take him at his word, and he was sinning against God as well as against us, and we wanted him to stop doing this so he could come back into fellowship. On the day of the meeting to take the issue before the church he once again refused to show up. (Someone actually went to get him to make sure there was no misunderstanding, and he told them he just didn't want to go.) So those of us who he had harmed presented our case to the congregation and they agreed that this could not be allowed to continue. They voted unanimously to remove him from the congregation as well as remove him from the congregation members house where he was refusing to pay his rent and refusing to move out. Immediately after the meeting two deacons were sent to where he lived to give him the results of the meeting, inform him he was no longer welcome in the congregation unless he changed his ways, and to physically move him out of the house.
The whole process was a sad one for me as he had been my friend as well as a member of the church I was attending. I was literally in tears when they voted to excommunicate him, and I don't do that very often. I really thought that somewhere in the Matt 18 process he would suddenly realize the seriousness of what was happening and change his ways. Had he done that and offered me restitution, I already knew that I had forgiven him and that I wouldn't have taken it from him, I would have just thanked him for the gesture and thanked him for turning around and making things right again. It was truly a sad day for me when I watched those two deacons leave that night and then saw them return to tell us it was done. But this was handled according to scripture, and sometimes bad things happen and the results are sad. I just had to accept that. To this day I have not seen or heard from him again.
