How would you handle two professing Christians living together?

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Winston

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Let's say you are a member of a good church and this couple comes and starts attending.  You find out they are living together.  How do you handle it?
 
Not enough info. Are they new Christians, or supposedly more mature in the faith (so they should know better)? Are they known to be a couple, or are they just roommates?  Is the arrangement permanent or temporary?
 
I don't deal with those matters personally but in my church it's usually the pastor who would tell them they need to get married.
 
If the couple is in your church very long they are going to be hearing the preaching from the pulpit and the Holy Spirit is going to either convict them to be married or they will leave ............It's not our job to play judge that's God
 
Just out of curiosity I would like to ask them how they justify it.
 
Winston said:
Let's say you are a member of a good church and this couple comes and starts attending.  You find out they are living together.  How do you handle it?
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Mind your own business and let the Holy Spirit convict them by the preaching of the Word. And I'm not talking about some bozo getting behind the pulpit and pointing his finger at them.

The minute a person steps in to convict them, they will blow it every time. 

I have seen times in my ministry when people came to me and asked me how they could change something in their life because something I preached about had convicted them, and I was amazed because what I preached about had NOTHING to do with the thing that needed to be changed.

God has a way of dealing with people hearts when they are sincere and are wanting to clean up their lives.  You just can't beat having the Holy Spirit talk to hearts vs. some preacher trying to talk to heads because he doesn't like their hair-cut or the kind of clothes they are wearing. 
 
Bob L, you're right. We try to do the job of the Holy Ghost way to much. Should we keep company with them though?
 
Ransom said:
Not enough info. Are they new Christians, or supposedly more mature in the faith (so they should know better)? Are they known to be a couple, or are they just roommates?  Is the arrangement permanent or temporary?
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Ok. I agree. Let's say that they are in their mid twenties. They have both been believers since college, say 5 years.  And they are living together permanently, not just roommates, but a couple.  And they sit in front of you and you start to get to know them by some means.
 
Bro Blue said:
Bob L, you're right. We try to do the job of the Holy Ghost way to much. Should we keep company with them though?
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If it was my church, I would be their friend. I would probably not give them any more company, or less, than anyone else.

Of course, I am answering this without knowing nothing else about them, But, I believe there are ways of being friendly, without being close to someone. 

I would simply try to make them feel wecome and wanting to come back.
 
Two months ago, a young couple started coming to church.  They were not married, had four kids together over the last 10 years.

They were professing faith and taking communion.

On the third week we lovingly yet firmly told them that they were living in sin and needed separate housing until they were married.  We paid for motel room and other expenses for a few days while pastor gave them marriage counseling and they are now married.

Ain't nothing wrong with following scripture and lovingly admonishing people of the need to conform to God's requirements.

In fact, it's extremely unloving not too.
 
The good is not served by doing nothing. The Bible doesn't say that the task of convicting sinners is the Holy Spirit's alone: it tells us how to spot them, and how to deal with them. In the case of sexually immoral persons, the instruction is to purge them out, not to be their buddy.

If it were "my" church and this couple were made known to me, I would - "lovingly yet firmly," to borrow RG's apt phrase - explain the seriousness of this sin, and then counsel them to repent and make arrangements to live apart within a reasonable deadline. The sexual part of the relationship would have to cease immediately, of course. If, as in RG's example, they can be encouraged to be married quickly, so much the better - especially if they have been a stable couple or some time.

Ain't nothing wrong with following scripture and lovingly admonishing people of the need to conform to God's requirements.
In fact, it's extremely unloving not too.

Also, that.
 
Reformed Guy said:
Two months ago, a young couple started coming to church.  They were not married, had four kids together over the last 10 years.

They were professing faith and taking communion.

On the third week we lovingly yet firmly told them that they were living in sin and needed separate housing until they were married.  We paid for motel room and other expenses for a few days while pastor gave them marriage counseling and they are now married.

Ain't nothing wrong with following scripture and lovingly admonishing people of the need to conform to God's requirements.

In fact, it's extremely unloving not too.
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This is close to what I would do. I am a fairly reserved person, so I usually don't go out of my way to talk on more than a surface level with new people. So, it would take me some time to get to know them, and I would not confront them lovingly until I knew them fairly well. I guess I would just be friends with them until I felt comfortable talking about it.

In contrast to that, I work with an evangelical woman who confronted my co-worker, a guy who lives with his girlfriend (Does not even claim to be a Christian), and said "God doesn't want you living with her, when are you getting married?"  I wonder how many Fundamentalsits would take that approach?
 
Winston said:
Let's say you are a member of a good church and this couple comes and starts attending.  You find out they are living together.  How do you handle it?
Click to expand...

Try to find something that they wrote on a forum a year ago and bring that up over and over again.  That is worse than shacking up.
 
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