Matt Chandler

Matt Chandler, The Village Church pastor and head of Acts 29, is taking leave of absence after he confessed inappropriate online relationship.

After a media storm and a period of “soul searching” by TVC leaders, Hinkley and TVC reconciled The staff said that instead of honoring their concerns and investigating Timmis, [made news this past May](https://julieroys.com/matt-chandler-headlines-conference-mark-driscoll/) when he appeared as a keynote speaker at a theology conference alongside the pastor Chandler had previously helped disqualify—Mark Driscoll. “We hope that Matt can use this time away from speaking to focus on the process that TVC elders have laid out for him.” An Acts 29 spokesperson added, “Matt recognizes that conferences like these serve as an outlet for different viewpoints and voices to be heard and discussed.” “The volume of exchanges and the familiarity, which played itself out in kind of coarse and foolish joking, is just not okay for someone who has been put in the position that God has placed me in,” Chandler said. Chandler also has served as president of the That lawsuit ended in a settlement [Acts 29](https://www.acts29.com/) church planting network since 2012. Chandler said at first, he didn’t think he had done anything wrong. 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.” Ramsey to donate,

The pastor of a prominent Dallas-Fort Worth megachurch said he had an inappropriate online relationship with a woman and will step down from preaching and ...

Chandler said a woman approached him at the church several months ago and told him she was concerned with his communications with her friend. The report found that Chandler had violated the church’s social media use policies. [told his congregation Sunday ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5rLHXCRNyk)that the relationship was not sexual or romantic. “The Word of God holds me to a certain standard. [a woman sued the church for $1 million](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2019/07/27/woman-files-1-million-lawsuit-against-flower-mound-megachurch-alleging-neglect-in-sexual-assault-case/) and said she was sexually assaulted by a minister and counselor at age 11. And I fell short.”

FLOWER MOUND, Texas (BP) – The Village Church announced Sunday (Aug. 28) that lead pastor Matt Chandler will take a leave of absence from teaching and ...

In addition to Acts 29, The Village is also aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention. 28) that lead pastor Matt Chandler will take a leave of absence from teaching and preaching following his admission to “inappropriate messaging” with a woman on Instagram. Chandler agreed to the elders’ suggestion that he take the leave of absence and admitted to feeling “embarrassed and stupid.” He affirmed the leave of absence was both “disciplinary” and “developmentally caring” for his family and the church.

According to a statement by The Village Church, a woman approached pastor Matt Chandler a few months ago with “concerns about the way he was using direct ...

NOTE: This is the last note about our latest book (which has proven to be popular). In a day of instant digital communication and global social media, our private lives can become public more quickly than ever before. Their report “led the elders to conclude that Matt violated our internal social media use policies, and more importantly that, while the overarching pattern of his life has been ‘above reproach,’ he failed to meet the 1 Timothy standard for elders being ‘above reproach’ in this instance.” [noted](https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?productCode=THW&te=1&nl=tish-harrison-warren&emc=edit_thw_20220829&uri=nyt://newsletter/d85ebc1d-1183-59eb-b97d-9d37d4870618) in her New York Times newsletter yesterday, pastors are facing burnout and discouragement at epidemic levels. And TVC leaders and their faith family need our compassion and intercession. Now known as The Village Church (TVC), the DFW-area congregation has [planted](https://www.thevillagechurch.net/about) multiple churches and has grown to over fourteen thousand attendees. The woman who received his inappropriate messages deserves compassion and care from her church family. Yesterday, TVC lead pastor Josh Patterson thanked the woman who confronted Chandler for her conviction and courage. Scripture warns, “We who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1). She [cites](https://www.barna.com/research/pastors-quitting-ministry) a Barna study showing that 42 percent of pastors have considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year. The TVC elders and Chandler emphasized this fact. Chandler was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009 but was declared cancer-free a year later following medical treatment.

Matt Chandler, lead pastor of teaching at The Village Church in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, announced he's accepted a decision by his elder board to ...

And I need to live into that, and I fell short,” Chandler explained. 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,” Chandler said. They revealed that Matt did not use language appropriate for a pastor, and he did not model a behavior that we expect from him.” A pastoral role requires a greater awareness of those boundaries,” The Village Church elders announced in an Aug. “My wife knew that. “We are strong proponents of brothers and sisters in Christ being friends, but there are boundaries around what’s appropriate in these kinds of friendships.

Matt Chandler's leave of absence from the Village Church near Dallas comes as Southern Baptists are already facing challenges.

Mr. Chandler’s return “depends on meeting expectations the elders have laid.” Mr. Her daughter [sued](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/us/village-church-texas-sexual-abuse-lawsuit.html) the church, and the church settled the case several weeks before Mr. His energetic sermons circulated widely online, he was a fixture as a speaker at large conferences across the country, and he wrote multiple books. Chandler, 48, has been the head pastor of the Village Church for about 20 years. Christi Bragg, then a longtime member, said that Mr. In 2019, the Village faced a sexual abuse allegation against an associate children’s minister. “It is the best protection for everybody.” Church leaders decided he should take a leave that was both “disciplinary and developmental,” the statement said. Chandler in February, and that it had hired a boutique law firm, Castañeda and Heidelman, to conduct an investigation. In May the denomination [released a report](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/southern-baptist-sex-abuse.html) from a third-party investigation that found that national leaders had suppressed reports of sexual abuse and resisted proposals for reform over two decades. The sudden departure under somewhat murky circumstances of the high-profile pastor, admired by many younger evangelicals for his preaching and dynamic stage presence, is the latest crisis of leadership in American evangelicalism.

In an in-person announcement to his congregation, Matthew Chandler, 48, said leaders of his church, The Village Church deemed his communication with the woman, ...

Chandler was the youth pastor of a small church close to Houston before attending Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. ... God is not punishing me, but somehow, for my joy and his glory, he’s let me endure this and walked me through.” Chandler wrote he did not “truly know and follow Jesus” until he was 17 years old. “It’s unbefitting of someone who is in my position as a lead pastor, and as an elder I am held to a higher standard and fell short of that higher standard.” Chandler went through chemotherapy treatment for his malignant brain tumor. His family eventually moved to the Houston area.

The lead pastor of the Village Church announced a leave of absence because of an inappropriate online relationship he had with a woman who wasn't his wife.

"When you accept the calling of being a pastor, you must live in such a way that it honors the mandate. He died of cancer in May that year, and then-Vice President The report said investigators searching Zacharias' devices found more than 200 photographs of younger women, include nude pictures of a salon employee in Malaysia. That it honors the church, and that it honors God," he wrote. Hybels initially dismissed the allegations as "flat-out lies." He later said that the accusations were misleading (and "some entirely false") but that he regretted putting himself in "situations that would have been far wiser to avoid."

Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Tex., appeared to fight back tears as he told his congregation on Sunday that he was ...

“Yet there were a couple of things that [the woman’s friend] said that were disorienting to me,” Chandler said without detailing the friend’s comments. They also determined that he failed to meet the church-pastor standard of being “above reproach.” The leaders found that Chandler’s behavior was “a sign of unhealth in his life.” [settled a lawsuit](https://www.thevillagechurch.net/events/2012-kids-camp-updates) alleging that one of its ministers molested an 11-year-old and the church was negligent in handling the situation. The church maintained that it “committed no wrong.” The pastor said the messages were called into question “several months ago” when a friend of the woman approached him and voiced her concerns. But church leaders thought the messaging was too frequent, familiar and resulted in “coarse and foolish joking,” Chandler said.

Matt Chandler, the lead pastor of The Village Church in Flower Mound, told his congregation Sunday that the relationship was not "romantic or sexual" but ...

Chandler said he immediately flagged the woman's concerns to the church elders and his wife. The review found Chandler's language wasn't "appropriate" for a pastor. I’m apologizing to my family, to you, to all those involved in this situation," he continued. The Rev. She had some concerns for how I was DMing on Instagram with a friend of hers. Earlier this month, leaders of the denomination revealed that several of its major entities are