The married head pastor of a Southern Baptist Megachurch received a rapturous applause as he returned to the pulpit after taking a three month leave of absence for exchanging “inappropriate” online messages with another woman.
Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Dallas apologised for what he repeatedly described as “my foolishness”, according to a broadcast of the service on YouTube.
Mr Chandler stepped away from the church on 28 August after telling congregants that he had sent messages over Instagram to another woman that were not “romantic or sexual”, but included “crude jokes” that were “unbefitting” of someone in his position.
Introducing Mr Chandler, pastor Josh Patterson said he was being reinstated after “diligently working through a development plan”.
Taking the stage to a standing ovation, congregants of the 4,500-member megachurch shouted “we love you Matt”.
“I’m sorry, I failed you,” he said. “The Lord met us and he carried us through, and I don’t want to lose sight of that.”
Mr Chandler said in August that the scandal began after a woman confronted him in the foyer of the church over messages he had sent to a friend of hers.
He said at the time that his wife knew about the messages, as did the unidentified woman’s husband.
He took the allegations to church elders who were reportedly concerned about the “frequency and familiarity” of the messages.
Village Church hired an external law firm to conduct a review of his social media use, emails and phone messages, and found that he had violated church policy.
The results of the investigation have not been released, according to the New York Times.
Mr Chandler explained to the congregants that as part of his rehabilitation he had taken part in two “intensives”, which included counselling and prayer with church elders, and a neurological exam.
He told churchgoers he no longer had a right frontal lobe after suffering brain cancer in 2009.
In a letter to congregants last week, church elders said: “We asked a lot of Matt, including time spent in study and prayer, personal reflection, and multiple intensives with trusted outside experts. Matt has completed everything asked of him with submissiveness, steadfastness, and humility, and we have received positive feedback from all involved.”
In May, a report issued by the Southern Baptist Convention found that leaders had ignored claims of clergy sex abuse to protect the church over almost two decades, according to a report in the Associated Press.
Abuse survivors had been met with “resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” after raising concerns with the church’s executive committee, the report found.
