The pastor of a megachurch in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has stepped down after he was confronted over inappropriate messages between himself and a woman who was not his wife over Instagram.
Matt Chandler, the lead pastor at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, announced his departure on Sunday, telling his congregants that the messages were not "romantic or sexual" but rather that the "frequency and familiarity" of the interactions — including what he called "crude jokes" that were "unbefitting" of someone in his position — were driving his decision to step down.
He said that elders in his church believed the messages were "unguarded and unwise" and that they "revealed something unhealthy in me."
“We cannot be a church where anyone is above the Scriptures and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus,” Mr Chandler said in his address. “The Word of God holds me to a certain standard. And I fell short.”
The Dallas Morning News reports that Mr Chandler is also the president and chairman of Acts 29, which works as an international church planting group. The organisation said Mr Chandler will not longer participate in speaking engagements on its behalf.
According to Mr Chandler, a woman approached him at the church several months ago and told him that she was worried about the way he was communicating with a friend of hers. He said that his wife knew about the exchanges, and that he was "disoriented" by the woman's claims that their discussions were inappropriate.
He said he sought the guidance of the church's board of elders, which found the "frequency and familiarity" of the messages concerning.
The church issued a written statement saying it had hired an independent law firm to review the pastor's messages on various social media platforms, his email, and on his cell phone, and the law firm found the pastor had violated the church's social media use policies for employees.
The revelations come at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention — of which Mr Chandler's church is a member — is facing a federal investigation over sexual abuse claims within its organisation. The convention recently published an internal report detailing the mishandling of abuse reports.
