Latest / How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack / A Pastor's Wife's Response to Matt Chandler Scandal

Transcript

A Pastor's Wife's Response to Matt Chandler Scandal · How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to the How to Faith a Life podcast, where we wrestle with questions on how to live a life of faith, from everything from books to Bible studies, even Bible study tips, this is your place to wrestle with the hard questions and dive deep into what scripture really says for the Christian walk.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you've subscribed to this podcast and your favorite podcast streaming services, review this podcast so other people can find it, and share with other believers who want to ask the hard questions.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with all that said, let's begin.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your girl does not want to talk about this, but we are gonna talk about it anyway.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, today we're gonna address the Matt Chandler situation, in particular from a pastor's wife point of view.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have had so many people reaching out to me for feedback and thoughts on the situation because it's so peculiar.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do not know, Matt Chandler is a pastor in Dallas.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's at the village church, and he's someone that I have recommended multiple times on my channel because I love the way that his brain waves work.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I don't know, he just every time I listen to him, he really blesses me.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: However, maybe about a week and a half ago, now he came out before his church and he said, I have been having messaging with a woman.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not sexual, but it's inappropriate.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's messaging on Instagram.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's inappropriate because it was frequent and casual, I think are the two words they used to describe that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this all came to light because her, this woman that he's been talking with very casually, this friendship that his wife was made aware of and that this woman's husband was made aware of, came got so dramatic because her friend approached Matt Chandler and said, like, hey, I don't like how y'all are messaging.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Matt was taken off guard by this, went to his session, and this session asked him to step down for a little bit.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, he has been doing a lot, a lot more than usual, and he's in charge of a lot of things, church planning.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, he's he's got his hand in a lot of different stuff.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, in a lot of ways, it's like, well, this is good, but in a lot of other ways, people are perplexed because we've never, let's just be honest, we we never see pastors do this.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: We never see a pastor say, Hey, this wasn't adultery, this wasn't sexual in any way, but I'm just getting a little bit too casual in ministry, and I need to check myself before I wreck myself, and I'm going to take some time off.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't see pastors, I don't know, uh, publicly address sin in their lives unless it's something that's really big.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so the whole internet has blown up over this, speculating whether or not it was adultery or emotional adultery.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Twitter got in this big uproar about whether or not um Christians should be able to have friendships with the opposite sex and whether or not this is like furthering damage from the patriarchy, which is probably how like a feminist would describe it, or whether or not this really was inappropriate, and we're grateful that he handled it in such a public way.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a pastor's wife, I uh well, okay, as a woman who enjoys Matt Chandler and the way that he preaches and just all the ways that he teaches, and then as a pastor's wife, I had to take like at least a week before I could even bring myself to sit down in front of a camera and address it because I had so many people talking to me about it.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: There was so much stuff like Ruslan on YouTube.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you guys listened to him or watch any of his stuff, but he had made like a bunch of videos about it, and it was just all too much.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: The whole internet, the uproar of people almost like happy that he had messed up was a lot, and then I myself had a lot of emotion around it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was really honestly very disappointed in him and disappointed in the way that he addressed it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like the way that he stood up in front of his church was not as humble as I would have expected it to be or have liked it to be.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't like it's very common in Texas culture for people to shout back up to the pastor on stage, and I felt like he allowed that to like pat him on the back and almost get like, yeah, I don't know.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't love the attitude that he had about it, and it seemed a little bit ingenuine from like normal stuff that he does.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was one really, really disappointed in him.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then second of all, I was really torn as a pastor's wife because I myself know all the weird gray areas in ministry.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, for example, women have Joe's number.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all know y'all know my husband's name is Joe.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's in ministry and he does a lot with like family and youth ministries, and that includes children's ministries.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: He oversees a lot of the stuff that like ministers to the family.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this means that there are a lot of women who volunteer that have his number and will just text him out of the blue, really anytime, and be like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this craft, or I'm thinking about, I don't know, changing this to this curriculum, and they just run things by him or get his approval on things or whatever.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of texting, and y'all know me, like Joe's my first boyfriend.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I am a jealous woman, and so I can't imagine Joe frequently or casually messaging, whether it's in text messages or on Instagram, like with Matt, a woman like that would tear me up.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in the same way, his wife knew about this and she was okay with it.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, I can't imagine a world by which um, you know, all of this blows up and she's not further hurt by it, that it that it doesn't sting a little bit more now that the whole world knows about it and reading their opinions and all of that.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so my heart really just goes out to Matt's wife and the other woman because I can't imagine how this blowing up and getting so publicized doesn't make it a lot more messy and a lot more confusing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't even a situation that does involve adultery.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, there's a really loud tractor.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you know.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you know you're in a country town when there's a John Deere tractor going down Main Street.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I was really like secondhand hurt and traumatized by it and um saddened that something that I'm assuming had to do around or started around ministry could get so frequent and casual and destructive.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now tomorrow we are doing a Bible study.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, y'all know I occasionally like to step in and give some kind of commentary.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the right word I want to use?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I like to touch on occasionally Christian cultural Christianity topics like this Matt Chandler situation.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: However, everybody always says, I want to do a Bible study.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I low-key view those things as a weird Bible study, like because of this passage in scripture or these verses, let's then talk about the Matt Chandler situation.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what what what I'm doing tomorrow is we're doing a Bible study through the heart of the issue here in the Matt Chandler situation.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're watching this on Tuesday when this or Tuesday, if you're watching this on Thursday when this comes out, keep an eye out for that video tomorrow because I will do a Bible study on like what I really think is the heart issue of this all and where he went wrong and what like what we can learn from this.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think that will be really beneficial on like a Bible study perspective.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: But as a pastor's wife, I looked at that and there is so much more emotion behind it all because I don't think there's probably ever been a pastor's wife in the history of the church since Acts 2 that hasn't at some point in being a pastor's wife felt second rate.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is it is very, very common for even just a season at a time, a week or a night in your life to feel like the church comes before you and your marriage or your husband's involvement in the house or whatever.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, it is editing faith.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel the need to put this in here.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't come for Joe.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: He is an amazing husband and he is so supportive and so loving.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And few times, if ever, have I felt second rate, but there has not been a single pastor's wife that I've ever talked to who hasn't confessed to at some point feeling second rate to the church and like she is fighting for her husband's attention.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what I'm trying to address here.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get back to the podcast.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really, really, really common struggle.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't remember if it was Tim Keller's wife or John Piper's wife, but they tell a story.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of them tells a story of coming home and after our late night at church or whatever, and his wife is breaking China, like their wedding China, all in an attempt to get his attention.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can't keep putting me um on the back burner.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is something that we that our relationship is something that needs to be kindled, and she was doing it as like a this is our wedding channel, China, and it means nothing to me if we don't actually work on our marriage.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, to me, I I and I don't mean this against Joe, it's just the nature of church ministry and just how encompassing it is because it involves worship, it involves the family, it involves um traditions and routines of like Sunday mornings and things like that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like the like ministry, especially church ministry, is just so all-encompassing.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for for the wife or the spouse of a pastor to not feel second rate.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's all I could think about the whole time these last this last week that I've been thinking about it is I don't know like in what world this can't be more hurtful after all of this coming out for um Matt Chandler's wife to not feel second rate.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because not only does she probably at times fall behind church ministry and the X-29 stuff and and gospel coalition involvement and all that kind of stuff, but then also now there's another woman that he's you know messaging with or like really close friends with.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and he's really casual and frequently talking with her.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, like, yeah, that hurts.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: But all the while there's that gray area of like, yeah, but she's like in his congregation, he's her pastor, and or she maybe she's even a volunteer at the church, and you know, like there needs to be some relationship there, brother-sister relationship, like the village church has addressed.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so all the while listening to this, I couldn't help but get hurt and fearful for the what nows for really every pastor's wife out there who is wondering what now?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now that we know, okay, he went too far probably, he was a little bit too casual, or it was a little bit too frequent, probably.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the what is the line?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And how do pastors um pour into their congregation with a good boundary if it is if it does get to be too much?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um what what are the job requirements for a pastor?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can I just can I openly address the fact that like being a pastor is so hard because the job is never done?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a Bible study or an email you could send out.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's always another person in the congregation that could use a phone call or a check-in.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, of of course, Matt probably, or many other pastors have probably gotten caught up into this thing of like, well, it's just a friendship, it's just some level of discipleship.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's ministry.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is my job.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here it is, it's gone too far.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is the happy medium?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the balance?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what the internet has been um wrestling with this these last two weeks since it's come out, but they're not doing it in light of like family life either.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like they're ignoring the wife in it all of, you know, yeah, a pastor unmarried is gonna be able to give more to his congregation and have more friendships.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And a pastor who is married and whose wife is already most of the time probably feeling second rate to the church.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm I'm just assuming that everybody's broken just like me and Joe are, then how much more so do we need to have kind of set expectations for relationships and involvement on social media and messaging and all those kinds of things?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the answers, but I really think that the internet is blowing up over the wrong things.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about Matt.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: None of this was ever about Matt Chandler.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: He was a broken sinner before we knew all about this, and he'll be forever until heaven.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's just another broken sinner preaching the gospel, and we all admired him too much and put him on a pedestal, and we ourselves wouldn't be able to stand up on that pedestal.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So why, so that pedestal need to be taken down anyway.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But guys, there's always, there's always going to be that question for pastors of have I done enough?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Could I be doing more?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of this stems from that pastor role of there is no box to be checked, there is no finishing mark, there's not, there's always more that he can be doing.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, there's a gray area on when you've done too much and when you've left behind your wife and your kids and in your home life.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there's a lot of assumptions here.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: But watching all of this go down, I kept thinking about that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: What about his wife?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And how embarrassing it must be for her with the whole internet debating whether or not it truly was adultery and whether or not it was, you know, emotional adultery or whatever.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how much more embarrassing, how much more debilitating must that be to feel like she's just itemized, she's just another thing on the list rather than an actual human being who's there to support him in ministry.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people aren't praying for her.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think when we address these issues and when the pastors fall short and they disappoint us, um, in what however severe severity and however severe the sin is, we have to constantly remember that they have families too.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is their heart and their home?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is their heart even home?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or is their whole life work?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ministry work, but work because you miss everything.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look look at the qualifications for an elder in scripture.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you miss everything if you don't got your stuff together at home, you know?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You miss all of the ministry that you can do if you're if you yourself are a hypocrite and you're not going home and truly loving and preaching the gospel in your own household.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the part that's the most disappointing for me.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to have a friendship that got too casual and frequent, but it's another thing to think about the consequences to his marriage that that must have been.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because you just you can't be super intimate and frequent and friendly with um one person and that not directly like affect your marriage.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's going to be you we have a cup, and if you pour 50% out of it one place, then you only got 50% left to pour into another place when you could give, you know, your whole cup to a person, if that makes sense.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: That metaphor might be faulty, but I think y'all know where I'm going with this.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna keep this short because um it's really emotional for me, and it's really humbling, and I think we all should be humbled if you look at anybody's life, um, my life included, you there there will always be things that we can find in each other's lives to say, you know, you let me down, you're a broken sinner because we are all genuinely broken sinners in need of a savior.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what if instead we look at the situation and we say, how can this be reflective of my friendships and my marriage and and the ways in it, like what I'm doing with my emotions and with my heart, and like we could get to tomorrow.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the Lord should be getting it all when He is getting it all, our whole heart, our whole soul, with all of our strength, um, that reflects it into our marriage.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, we need to be praying for Matt and his wife and the whole church as a whole, but also all the pastors watching this go down who are asking questions like, does that mean I've gone too far in my friendships?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, what is too far?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the lines?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when does ministry end and just a friendship begin?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that friendship could be problematic.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And where do I go with my wife, or where do I just go to the Lord, or where do I just go with like there's a lot of questions, and we belittle the severity and the confusingness of these questions when we just make it all about Matt and him openly confessing, like, hey, I'm a broken sinner, I can pollute even good things, you know.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So while I'm disappointed in him, while I wish that he had handled things better, um, I really think this is a lot more of an us thing rather than a him thing.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I will leave it at that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pray, Father God, you know um our hearts more than anybody else, and you know the brokenness, and you know that we are um just as undeserving of his love, of your love as that is, God.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just pray and ask for you to bless him and his wife in this season when they try and reorient themselves and as he tries to anchor himself back in your word.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I pray and ask, Lord, that even in this very moment he will feel your presence around him, comforting him and encouraging him and his wife as well, Lord, that they will feel you at work in their lives despite all the negativity on the internet around them.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I I can't imagine how that must feel, God.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: God, we we confess we are all so desperately in need of you and your saving grace.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we ask for that in this very moment, Lord, pleading out that we can't save ourselves.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: We mess up everything, just like Matt.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, um, we we cry and we confess out to you that we need you desperately.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in your name we pray, Father God.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.