Matt Chandler Taking Leave of Absence After Admitting To Inappropriately Texting Woman
The Village Church’s Matt Chandler has taken an indefinite leave of absence from preaching and teaching after it was revealed he was engaged in an inappropriate texting conversation with a woman not his wife. The conversation, while not romantic or sexual, was described as “overly familiar” and involved “coarse and foolish jesting.”
The suspension was revealed during their Aug 28, 2022 service, where pastor Josh Patterson prefaced the situation by telling the congregation, “I do want our hearts to be anchored in that truth because where we’re going with our time today is gonna be hard. This is going to be a challenging service.”
“As we find ourselves in spots of not being okay, we have to be okay as a congregation with people not being okay. And I’ll say this, and it’ll lead to where we’re going. If that’s true for you, but not true for me, we have missed the gospel. If that’s true for you as congregants, but not true for pastors and leaders, then we have somehow missed the reality of our shared humanity, and missed the reality of our shared need for the gospel.”
Passing the microphone off to Matt Chandler, the lead pastor reveals:
Hey guys. I know it just feels like ‘oh my gosh, what’s coming?’ So let me, I’m the lead pastor of this church, I plan on being the lead pastor of this church for the next 20 years. But I do need to… It’s harder seeing you.
Several months ago, a woman approached me, outside here in the foyer, she had some concerns for how I was DMing on Instagram with a friend of hers. I didn’t think I had done anything wrong in that; my wife knew that, her husband knew that. And yet, there were a couple of things that she said, they were disorienting to me.
And so I immediately came in the room, I found chairman of the elder boards, Jason Swords, found Josh Patterson, the other lead pastor, and said, “This is what this person just told me.” And then I went home, Lauren wasn’t with me that night, and I told Lauren, this is what was said to me tonight.
From there, the elders began to look into, because that’s what they’re supposed to do. Because we cannot be a church where anyone is above the scriptures, and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus. And so they looked into the conversation between me and this other woman, and they had some concerns.
And those concerns were not that our messaging was romantic or sexual. It was that our conversations were unguarded and unwise, and because I don’t ever want there to be secrets between us, the concerns were really about frequency and familiarity.
We believe in brother/sister relationships here, and yet there was a frequency that moved past that. There was a familiarity that played itself out in coarse and foolish joking that’s unbefitting of someone in my position as a lead pastor, and as an elder I’m held to a higher standard and fell short of that higher standard.
So the elders have decided, and I think they’re right, that my inability to see what I was in probably has some revealing some unhealth in me. And I don’t know if that’s tied to the pace I run or the difficulty of the last six, seven years, but I agree with them. And so in their grace to me and my family, they’ve decided and again, I think they’re right, to put me on a leave of absence starting immediately from preaching and teaching at the Village Church.
If I’m honest I’m just really embarrassed. Feel stupid. Feel dumb. Feel like I’m embarrassing my wife and kids. Putting a ton of pressure on our staff. Feel like I’ve fallen short for you-and you might be hearing me, you might not even be a Christian, you might be hearing me saying this, like ‘what the H?’
But the Word of God holds me to a certain standard. And, I need to I need to live into that, and I fell short. And man, I’m apologizing- my family, to you, to all involved in this situation. And I, some things I love, I love that our elders engaged at the level they did. You know, easy this would have been to make it nothing and just let me not address whatever this is? Super grateful that the elders have loved us and walked with us the way that they have. Super grateful for you. I’m super hopeful for what’s to come in the future. But I need to breathe. And that’s both discipline, the discipline and it’s development. And so when in time, forgive me, I love you. Eager for the other side of this, whatever God has for us. And so let me pray for us. And then Josh will step in and lead us in the service.”
After confessing, which received a standing ovation form the congregation, Patterson went on to clarify that though Chandler failed to be above reproach and engaged in behaviors that violated the church’s social media polices, the elder board believe that the event “did not rise to the level of more severe discipline” and did not disqualify him from the ministry, explaining that “Matt’s leave of absence is both disciplinary and developmental, which allows him to focus on growing greater awareness in this area.”
There is no timeline for his return.
About Author
Just another one who will squirm all he can without taking responsibility and then will be back in 6 months telling how he was healed.
Another guy who thinks the role of elder is ‘his’. No one can take it away from him. Isn’t he so handsome? Isn’t he so eloquent? Isn’t he so nice? I always thought how it looks like thousands of post it notes behind him. Also, with a ‘pulpit’ that small and low, they may as well not have one at all. Possibly paid a couple grand for those used Nike shoes lol
How do you know all this? It sounds like you know exactly what is in his heart.
The standing ovation afterward says all you need to know about all the goats at TVC.
I am currently making at least an extra $29,000 a month from home by doing extraordinarily honest and clean online work from home. t50) Currently be a district of this task and make more money online by accompanying trainings
on a specific website…….. http://goodpay24.blogspot.com
Its called flirting.
Okay, but they said it wasn’t romantic or sexual. So, if it was flirting, then they are either bald face lying, or, perhaps worse, subtly deceiving everyone with nuanced linguistic engineering. And MC is in on it, as is the whole elder board. And his wife knew about this? And the other spouse also knew? That is not “unhealth” (none of it is), that would represent a much, MUCH deeper problem(s).
MC is a mixed bad. There is some good, and a lot of Woke. Most concerning is the trajectory his theology, particularly when it comes to conforming to Woke-ism. So it is likely the Church would be better off w/o him leading/teaching. [Although the seeds of Woke-compromise have already been planted by him]
Whatever his wrongdoing is, it is still way too nebulous. Coarse joking w/a woman via text? If only other churches and ministries stepped in and took action after something like this … so many other problems could be nipped in the bud.
They said, ” we missed the Gospel” and “shared humanity.” Right there tells you all you need to know. Woke phraseology up the wazoo.
Seems like typical Reformed over-discipline. He was confronted by a person about a sin. If he repented at that time, then there’s no need to take it further. You don’t need to have a grand confession to the church and the world for an inappropriate text.
So instead they should have turned a blind eye to it ?
Your profile picture pretty much says it all 😬
Is your goal in church discipline to win back your brother, or is it to inflict pain and anguish? Given your personal attack against me, I’m guessing you don’t have much Scriptural basis for your positions. Here’s me confronting you and asking you to repent. Will you?
Blames it on the pace of his life. Nonsense. And he knew what he was doing was wrong. He’s not sorry, just that he got caught. The whole scene, also, is so cavalier—jeans, t-shirt, tennis shoes, a tat, and, “hey guys”. This is no pastor and this is no church.
Swallowing camels (CRT) while straining at gnats here. “inappropriate” means calling a trans by the wrong pronoun. Yeah, gotta step down when you do that.
I do not see any problem with how this was dealt with except that perhaps the public airing of it was probably unnecessary. This does not at all rise to anything close to an egregious sin, so I think an intervention by the elders was probably enough. Now, the trajectory had this continued could have become something worse. So thank God for the sister who approach Matt in private. As a married man I have very surface level friendships with women. Conversations are brief. Texts are superficial and very infrequent. Boundaries are incredibly important and necessary, especially for those in ministry. Kudos to this church for being on guard.
Quite frankly, this is not very damning and Chandler was obviously forthcoming. Unless there is more to this than what’s been divulged, it’s a big nothing burger.
Baloney!