Last Sunday, August 28, The Village Church (TVC), a Southern Baptist mega church in the Dallas, Texas area, and lead pastor Matt Chandler announced that he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence. I would best describe the stated reason as a Christianese word salad leaving us with more questions than answers.
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The New York Times story gives more detail about the timeline. TVC and Chandler shared that he was approached in the lobby of the church in February 2022 by a friend of a ”woman who was not his wife,” about his use of social media direct messaging with that woman. Chandler said that he found this encounter in the lobby ”disorienting.” After bringing this encounter to the attention of church elders, TVC hired a ”boutique” law firm to review and investigate Chandler’s messaging history on his social media accounts, email and cell phone. In May the church notified Acts 29, a large, evangelical organization of which Matt Chandler is president. Acts 29 released a statement in response to Chandler’s leave. The Acts 29 board has asked Chandler to step aside from Acts 29 speaking engagements at this time.
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In a video posted to the church’s website, another pastor Josh Patterson led the announcement about Chandler’s leave of absence. Patterson was followed by Matt Chandler addressing the congregation. He started out declaring that he would be the lead pastor of TVC for the next 20 years. As he described the events leading to his time away, he became emotional at times. Vaguely referring to his inappropriate messages, he says he felt embarrassed and stupid. Searching for an explanation, he speculates that this ”unhealth” or ”whatever this is,” might be due to the “pace” he runs as a mega church pastor or the difficulties of the past “6-7 years.” The timeline for his return will be dictated by the church elders. His leave of absence is described as both “disciplinary and developmental.” I find their use of the word “developmental” interesting. Matt is a 48 year-old mega church pastor and president of a large evangelical organization. What kind of development do they think he needs?
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As an abuse survivor advocate and blogger, I am very aware of multiple past issues at The Village Church, and I have covered some of those on my blog. In 2015, after reading my story in the Dallas Observer, former Village Church member Karen Hinkley reached out to me. I also connected her with my friend and fellow blogger, Dee Parsons, at The Wartburg Watch. Dee and I proceeded to listen and support Karen. I collected information and kept up with developments as we moved towards writing her story. After about 6 weeks of communication with a Dallas Morning News investigative reporter on their plans to cover The Village Church’s egregious mistreatment of Karen, Dee and I decided to move forward with breaking the story on our blogs. Shortly after, Matthew Paul Turner covered this story at The Daily Beast.
My post covering Karen’s story contains numerous documents showing The Village Church’s public church discussion of their decision to discipline Karen, because she sought an annulment from her husband, a confessed pedophile. She also wanted to be removed from church membership which the church said was not allowed, because she was under church discipline. In that post, I also shared another email sent out to thousands of church members about another member facing discipline. I have redacted the name, but it was included in the church’s email.
Matt Tonne case: The Village Church settles sexual abuse lawsuit, says ‘we committed no wrong’: The church, led by Matt Chandler, announced it reached a settlement with “Jane Doe One” on Aug. 1 over the allegations linked to former staffer Matt Tonne, who was accused by Christi Braggs and her husband, Matt, in a 2019 report in The New York Times of sexually abusing their daughter when she was about 11 years old.
Have you heard Matt Chandler’s narcissistic zero rant lamenting his role as a busy mega church pastor weighed down by the rabid sheep? I wrote about it here.
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Yesterday, thanks to a Twitter reply, I had a -wait, what- moment, what does she mean? I googled Matt and Lauren Chandler, and the first video hit was ”Our Story.” I vaguely recall hearing something about the circumstances of how they met, but I had forgotten the details and had never heard them tell it.
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The Chandlers met when Matt was a 23 year-old camp pastor and Lauren was a 17-year old high school student attending the camp. He says that people thought he was ”so crazy then,” and that when he left the camp in Colorado, he knew he was going to marry her.
I shared the video on twitter just stating Matt’s own words. It struck a nerve with a lot of people for the same reasons it disturbed me. Matt crossed a boundary of power and trust. There is an imbalance of power there. It is inappropriate. He says it was all ”above board,” but by the nature of its beginning and progression, it could not have been. It’s not the age gap. It’s the position of power and trust gap that’s a problem.
If a 23 year-old teacher, counselor, coach or other adult in a position of power and trust behaved in this manner with a student or patient, how would this scenario be viewed? As a breach of trust and violation of boundaries.
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