One of the most prominent voices for Reformed theology and church planting among Southern Baptists announced Aug. 28 he is taking an indefinite leave of absence from preaching and teaching due to what he called inappropriate online chats with a woman who is not his wife.
Matt Chandler
Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in the far northern suburbs of Dallas and leader of the international Acts 29 church planting network, said he had not engaged in a sexual or romantic relationship with the woman but that his frequent and “coarse” direct messages exchanged over Instagram were “unguarded and unwise” and “revealed something unhealthy in me.”
The news hit an unusual chord in a time when Southern Baptists and other churches are focused on child sexual abuse and marital infidelity. What Chandler appeared to confess to was messaging that had the potential to appear inappropriate or to lead to inappropriate actions.
Chandler, 48, began his confession to the congregation by saying, “I plan on being the pastor here for another 20 years, but I do need to loop you in on some things, OK?”
He continued: “Several months ago, a woman … met me out here in the lobby, and she had some concerns about how I was using the DM function on Instagram to message with one of her friends. At the time when she brought it up, I saw no issue with it. My wife knew about it. This woman’s husband knew about it. And so I kind of pushed against that not being OK. She said some things in that conversation, though, that were really disorienting for me.”
He discussed the situation with the chair of the church’s elders and a fellow pastor, as well as with his wife, he said.
“Although my DMing with this woman was not romantic, nor was it ever sexual, it was unguarded and it was unwise.”
“The accusations brought up some concerns that although my DMing with this woman was not romantic, nor was it ever sexual, it was unguarded and it was unwise,” Chandler told the congregation. “And the way that played itself out was in a kind of frequency and familiarity that is not wise for someone in my position.
“The volume of exchanges and the familiarity, which played itself out in kind of coarse and foolish joking, is just not OK for someone who has been put in the position that God has placed me in. And so the elders worked through it and decided — and I think they’re right — that my inability to see this for what it was revealed something not right, something unhealthy, in me,” he said.
For that reason, he and the elders have agreed that he will take an indefinite leave of absence from preaching and teaching. He did not indicate he was taking a leave from serving as the church’s pastor or from administrative duties.
He called the leave of absence from preaching and teaching both “disciplinary” and “developmental.”
Chandler said he was “embarrassed” and felt “foolish and stupid.”
He fell short, he said, of modeling for other men “the kind of men we should be, the kind of leaders we should be, the kind of Christians we should be.”
He fell short, he said, of modeling for other men “the kind of men we should be, the kind of leaders we should be, the kind of Christians we should be.”
He asked the church’s forgiveness and was met with applause. “We cannot be a church where anyone is above the Scriptures and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus. The word of God holds me to a certain standard. And I fell short.”
The Village Church and Chandler stand at the epicenter of a conservative, Calvinistic movement that reaches from Southern Baptists into the larger evangelical and nondenominational world. This movement, epitomized by the Acts 29 network, espouses a strict complementarian theology that says God created men and women for distinctly different roles in church and home. The movement combines biblical inerrancy with Reformed theology and complementarianism.
What is today known as The Village Church began in 1978 as First Baptist Church of Highland Village. At the time, Highland Village was a small suburb of a suburb on the northern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The small Southern Baptist church called 28-year-old Chandler as pastor in 2002 and changed its name.
Explosive growth occurred in the years since then, and the church expanded to multiple campuses. It later changed its philosophy and spun off the other campuses into independent congregations. The church today not only ranks among the top 100 largest churches in America but among the fastest-growing churches in America.
In 2019, The Village Church was sued for $1 million by a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted by a minister and counselor at the church in 2012 when she was age 11. On Aug. 27, 2020, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the criminal charges against the former employee, saying the woman “cannot and has not positively identified (the man) as the person who committed (the) offense.” The church reported it had come to a “resolution” with the woman, but her family later denounced the church for not doing enough.
In 2015, The Village Church made headlines for exercising church discipline on a woman who left her husband without permission after learning he is a pedophile. The church later apologized to the woman.
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