Village Church Won't Let Matt Chandler's DMs Slide
What we can glean from the announcement of Matt's Leave
This week, the evangelical community was left befuddled as Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church (TVC) in Flower Mound, Texas, announced he would be taking a temporary leave of absence from the church’s ministry. It wasn’t what the congregants were told that made many feel…Left Behind in confusion, but rather what they were not told about the reason behind his leave.
First, some background. Who is Matt Chandler, and what is TVC?
By any metric, TVC is a true evangelical Southern chicken-fried mega church. The multi-site church’s 2020 Annual Report boasts 8,000 members and $11.2 Million in revenue. Chandler, who shepherds the main location, is a gifted speaker who seems to exude a kind of “aww shucks” quiet and sincere charm that makes him easy to listen to. However, the church is also proudly affiliated with the Acts 29 network which has come under fire as a consistent perpetuator of spiritual and emotional abuse by former members who are beginning to speak out about their experiences.
Tonne Policing.
But the issues don’t stop at TVC’s association with bad actors in Acts 29. In case you missed it, TVC was sued for $1 Million in 2019 by a woman who alleged that she was sexually assaulted as an 11 year old by Matthew Tonne, a former minister and counselor at TVC. Tonne was even arrested and prosecuted for those same allegations though prosecutors dismissed the charges in 2020. Nevertheless, TVC settled with the plaintiff this August for an undisclosed amount, while publicly maintaining that there was no wrongdoing on their part.
Considering that the ink on the lawsuit settlement is still drying, the timing of Chandler’s announcing a temporary reprieve from ministry feels too coincidental to be unrelated. In fact, it very well could be that the announcement, and Chandler’s leave, were part of the negotiated terms of the settlement, though the two situations don’t appear to be related at present.
Which brings us to last Sunday morning, August 28th when the following announcement was made by Chandler from the stage at TVC, and my opinion of what it all means:
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.”1
Video Here:
What the H?
What does it all mean? Many have speculated, and I agree, that this is likely something akin to an emotional affair. I presume that the tone of the dialogue with the unknown woman was reciprocal but that Matt’s participation overlooks power dynamics that make it akin to sexual harassment. Whatever it was, is enough that the leadership felt it needed to be acted upon. How do I get there? Some key points I made note of in my assessment from the transcript:
“Several months ago, a woman approached me…” - So this has been going on a long time behind the scenes. The New York Times reports that the confrontation took place in February. That means there were six months in which to bring this to the congregation’s attention. In fact, summer may have been an ideal time to disclose this with church attendance dipping from all the summer traveling that families do and the loss of younger attendants who are home with family during college break. This gives me more reason to think the timing of the disclosure was connected to the settlement. It wasn’t publicly disclosed because TVC wanted their people to know. That could have been done at any time. And an ideal time would have been when there were fewer people present. Rather, the window of opportunity to control the narrative was likely shrinking.
“She had some concerns for how I was DMing on Instagram with a friend of hers” - Long live the Enneagram 8’s. Jane Doe may have been content to let things sit as-is, but her (clearly E8) friend wasn’t and said something about it. Something obvious but easily overlooked in this detail. I don’t generally share my DMs with friends. Not because there’s anything to hide, but because I don’t have many. Friends, that is.
No, seriously: I mean there’s not a lot of DM conversation that I have with people that I feel are interesting enough to be shared. We share DMs with people because just telling them what someone said feels insufficient. Reasons may include that they are shocking, surprising, or too voluminous to summarize or screenshot. The woman on the other side of these messages thought enough of what was going on that she wanted her friend to see it for herself. It was tea. If it wasn’t significant to her, she wouldn’t have shown it. Again, this makes me believe that this was, at best for Chandler, an emotional affair.
Whatever Matt thought of the communication, the woman on other side of it felt she had a trophy worth displaying to her friend.2“I didn’t think I had done anything wrong in that; my wife knew that, her husband knew that.” - Okay, let’s talk about “THAT”. As you may have read in August, Tamara Walcott now holds the record for heaviest cumulative bench/ squat and press after lifting 1,620.5 lbs in a Virginia weightlifting competition. In this context, the word “that” is doing more heavy lifting than her. This is actually the thing that actually raised the first red flag for me. The word “that” is far too vague because we have not been told specifically what “that” is. And considering how well crafted the confession is, it’s intentionally vague.
What Chandler didn’t say was “My wife saw all the messages”, “her husband saw all the messages”. Thus, the way that he brushed quickly past who knew, without detailing what they knew, makes me think the specifics were unknown. In other words, the spouses may have known that Matt and Jane Doe DM’d regularly but they likely didn’t know what was being discussed. Concerning the frequency of contact, it may even make sense that they did communicate daily without raising flags if it was a co-worker. Whatever the situation, if we take what we’re told as true, the existence of the communication wasn’t a bother to any of the four adults within the two households. But E8 saw the problem objectively. This leads me down another trail: A worst case scenario would be if all the information was known to both spouses, and neither Mrs. Chandler nor Jane Doe’s husband found it problematic, but the E8 friend outside of those relationships did and the church leaders agreed with her. That would indicate that not just Chandler, but all four adults (both the Chandlers and the Does) had the same blindness to the problematic nature of “that”. Can you see my concern?
“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…” - This sentence, coupled with “that” is what gives me the most pause. It sounds like the conversation with E8 wasn’t casual, but that she launched allegations based on some level of receipts in hand. It was enough that Chandler felt the need to talk about it quickly, face-to-face, with three leaders and they sent him home while they mulled it over. One could say that he was being overly cautious but the reason why we’re here is, by his own admission, the carelessness with which he handled himself. If he thought it was nothing, it wouldn’t make sense to treat it like a fire. And if it was nothing, the elders wouldn’t have made the decision to bench their star quarterback.
“From there, the elders began to look into…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.” - Translation: an investigation was launched. You can read TVC’s statement about the investigation here. Notice, also, how closely Matt’s announcement tracks the language used by TVC in their official announcement. He had a script to work off of that was carefully honed.
Another important point: if the church was just concerned about one conversation on one platform, they probably would’ve just said, “show us the messages”. The next step taken after the meeting was a formal investigation of Chandler’s messaging history across social media platforms, cell phone, and email. Moreover, that investigation was handled by a law firm which has certain implications to be discussed below. You can hear some candid, in-depth thoughts about how significant, and in my opinion, damning, that all is here in my interview with Johnna Harris from The Bodies Behind the Bus Podcast.
It shouldn’t have taken from February to present to review his social media, text, and email usage. Particularly if Matt was flagging items that could be problematic for efficiency sake. Again, this leads me to believe the timing of the departure is not coincidental. Even if it has no relation to the lawsuit, there appears to at least be a connection in the minds of TVC’s leadership who surely realize how hard it is to fight a war on two fronts for a sustained period of time. So, not just the timing, but the amount of time taken, are significant in my view.
Lastly, this portion of the statement tells us that the concerning behavior is a poor reflection of the high calling that pastors have, that it was “coarse”, “unguarded”, “unwise”, “frequent”, “familiar”, and that the nature of it "moved past” a “brother/sister” relationship. I initially wondered if the communication could have simply been about confidential information, gossip, or even racist in nature. However, this section tells us that a difference in gender and power dynamics were both factors that aggravated the situation. Logically, that can most easily play out where some sort of sexual tension did, or had potential to, exist.
“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” - Rounding third and heading to home, these two sentences also feel laced with meaning from my point of view. The elders made a decision based on everything mentioned. In the same way that the word “that” did a lot of heavy lifting to describe the relationship earlier, “what I was in” is carrying an impressive amount as well.
“In”?
Not, “what was happening” or “potential issues”? Sounds like an entanglement to me. In Eva circles, we call it “an emotional affair”. I really do have to respect the verbal chess being played here. Presumably, Jane Doe is part of the congregation, or at least aware that the statement was being made. It would be unwise to throw her under the bus and have her come forward in frustration with more details. Rather, he blames himself…kind of. By referencing the pace he runs and the difficulty of the past several years, he is setting up an excuse frequently heard in situations of infidelity: I was stressed, I was tired, and in a moment of weakness, I couldn’t say no to this.
So why are we talking about all of this? In fairness to Matt, we’ve seen these sorts of things before, right? The reason that all of this merits our attention is, yes, partly because it concerns a church pastor. But more importantly, due to all the other issues that we’ve seen come to light from within the Acts 29 network. Will Acts 29 ever learn from the problems that arise with elevating these charismatic, complementarian, reform theology, and often John Wayne type, caricatures?
What’s Law Got to Do, Got to Do with it?
What I want to make sure that no one misses is the significance of TVC disclosing that a law firm was commissioned to do the investigation. An independent investigation can be done by any number of qualified third parties. However, there’s two significant reasons to use a law firm: (1) Historically, the profession of law commands a certain level of respect and prestige in the eyes of the public. By utilizing an attorney, the credibility of the profession is also lent to TVC by extension. Note, according to TVC, there is nothing sexual that has occurred which means there really isn’t anything criminal that could be at issue. So, and I ask this even though I’m a lawyer, why do you need a lawyer here? The answer is Reason (2): Attorney / Client Privilege.
This brings us to a segment that (for now) I’m calling A Firm Foundation, sponsored by Callahan & King. Factoid: when you consult with a lawyer for the purpose of representation, whether you hire them or not, with very few exceptions, everything you say is covered by attorney / client privilege. One example of an exception might be if you disclosed that you intended to harm another person. In that case, the lawyer would have a duty to disclose it to law enforcement. Absent the very narrow exceptions, what you have to say to a lawyer is safe, and the things that they learn in the course of representing you which may be detrimental, or embarrassing, to you are also confidential. Thus, if the firm were to discover a problematic pattern of behavior from Matt, or other church leaders, that information can be shared with the elders in confidence. Moreover, if someone were to later file suit against TVC asking for documents or information related to the investigation, TVC can claim attorney-client privilege (or attorney work product privilege) over that documentation / information and any findings made.
Reason (3): Liability. The benefit of having a lawyer analyze the problem as soon as it is raised is that the lawyer knows what kind of things to look for in order to make an assessment of liability later on. The lawyer knows the importance of gathering the records, getting witness statements, etc up front. They know what makes a good case and what will sink their case if it comes to light. Once they have gathered all of the information, they can advise the church how it should proceed legally and what TVC stands to lose in court. It’s sort of like having your claims adjuster present when a car accident happens. This isn’t the kind of precaution you would take if you didn’t believe that there were a need. Especially due to the cost.
So, in conclusion, my opinion on the TVC saga is:
Matt was entangled in an emotional affair;
The investigation began months ago;
All of this was communicated only now;
There were receipts which means the information could have gotten out; and
That all seems too coincidental in light of the recent law suit settlement.
That’s just my opinion. Tell me why I’m wrong. I’m not wrong, but tell me anyway.
Thanks to The New Evangelicals for the transcription of Matt’s speech.
Important Note: a reader pointed out the following about this statement & I agree & believe this merits updating but I didn’t want to pretend that I didn’t need someone to point this out to me. Her comment reads: “Hey Robert, love your account and takes, but the "trophy" motive you've assigned to the woman who shared the DMs is tough to read. I believe the only safe way for women to exist in conservative Christian spaces is to walk out the door. But for those who haven't admitted how bad things are yet, the first step is often reaching such a point of vague discomfort that you "gossip" about something to a friend, only to realize upon their shocked response that NO, you weren't crazy for your physical disgust at the way some pastor / friend/ etc talked to you”.
Btw, I read this as “you share something that could be misperceived to be gossiping”. Thank you, @AnnetteDzedzy. All the credit goes to you.
These are all great questions and concerns. Having done research on clergy sexual abuse of adults and working with survivors over the past decade my sense is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. What "appears" to have been happening is definitely some grooming and blurring of boundaries, which is always how an abusive leader ultimately gains sexual access to someone. What really bothers me more than anything is "how" all this was made public. Matt Chandler kept referencing himself over and over and then eventually got a standing ovation. That is honestly what has to stop and stop now. Why did he not talk about how this person was injured or the pain he has caused his wife. Why was the congregation not shocked or stunned or totally sober or even grieving? I think congregations have been groomed to stand with their "hero" and overlook the person targeted or injured in a grotesque twisting of the gospel. This whole situation should give us serious pause. Thank you for addressing and exposing more of the underbelly of this.
Excellent write up, and love the book/play references. My question is this: without knowing (thus far) what "that" entails, should MC have been the one to make this statement, giving him the opportunity to apologize, "kind of..."? Or should another leader, say the elder chair, have made a more objective statement on what they were aware of at that point and not sugar coated it?
There seems to be an obvious cohort behind the statement, crafting it to almost make MC look like the victim. Can't help but think perseveration of the ministry was at the forefront of said crafting.