village church pastor asked to resign 2017
Change). However, that once again changed in July of 2016 when two controversial police shootings happened back to back with Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. I ask that The Village Church refrain from any future communication on my behalf to my friends, family, and supporters, she wrote them in her February 11 resignation letter.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share so thoroughly, your experiences and your concerns will be a help to many, I have no doubt. Two weeks later, she withdrew her membership from the Village Church and notified them that she had also filed for a legal annulment of her marriage. On the morning of 7/7/16, we immediately reached out to Matt & Lauren with our frustrations and requested a meeting to discuss them. Since Hinkley had signed a membership covenant agreeing to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at TVC before pursuing divorce from my spouse, the church rejected both the annulment and the membership withdrawal: We have been perplexed by your decision to file for an annulment of your marriage without first abiding by your covenant obligations to submit to the care and direction of your elders. Get the best from CT editors, delivered straight to your inbox! . Will I have to explain certain things to my son that my white brothersand sisters in Christ may not ever have to? Its hard. Do those things happen? Alton, Philando Castile, thatcould have been me. Browse 60+ years of magazine archives and web exclusives. This action led to the resignation of our pastor in his attempt to not cause a church split by bringing the vote to the church. The churchs abuse prevention and reporting procedures will be reviewed by experts, according to the letter, and the discipline procedures will be a much more patient process that keeps an eye out for the need for specialized treatment that goes beyond the kind of care that we, or even a qualified biblical counselor, can offer.. They've now hired a law firm to sift through all of Chandler's social media. Of course not. Dont email me. There are specific instances where we have let our practices blind us to the person sitting in front of us, he said. Instead, moving forward, Jordan will remain in a season of intentional pastoral care, where his role will be to remain faithful to actions in keeping with repentance (Acts 26:20), pursuing holiness and purity, and continuing to flee from sin.. To us, and to other members who are first responders, this was the height of insensitivity. Screenshots were only edited to make them more readable, none of the actual content was edited. I know there are always exceptions to a rule and racial issues are still there, but the approach to fix such issues should stand on the gospel itself, not a social gospel civil rights movement disguised as the gospel. Feels like a lot of shameless virtue signaling on their part. Now setting aside the implications that the officers in both the Sterling and Castile cases were guilty of racist murder, did you catch what he said before that? And thenProverbs 12:6personifies wicked words by styling them as premeditating murderers: The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood. Such quotations could be multiplied. This (unfortunately) plays right into the hands and mindset of Matt Chandler and his cronies. Its grievously sad that a so-called Christian pastor has fallen for such propaganda and spews this leftist ideology. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Morgan Lee, and Bob Smietana. We didnt feel like it could wait. I know that a lot of those families are in contact with other families and this will hopefully mitigate any game of telephone as conversations progress. "We cannot be a church where anyone is above the Scriptures and above the high heavenly call into Christ Jesus," Chandler said. Now look at what Matts friend, Eric Mason, said from TVCs pulpit regarding this matter. No record. Theyre not getting that not only does it often not work, but it is often re-traumatizing to the victim.. Hinkley reported that Root had allegedly violated SIMs child safety protection policy in late 2014, George Salloum, SIMs vice president of finance and operations, confirmed to CT. From the Christian perspective, it would be great to see if TVC will respond to this, as I am sure it will cross their path. Lauren, just like Matt had previously, got pushback on her post. All rights reserved. Yeah, I walk around in a great deal of fear just wondering. Most churches leaders have realized that asking members to let them vet life decisions can lead to abuse and towards authoritarian leadership, he said. We are not the only police family that they are responsible for caring for. My heart is super heavy. In addition to that, they recommended a Netflix documentary titled 13 which we watched. Russell Moore, who is often promoted by TVC, frequently takesanti-police stancesand believes those who are against illegal immigration willeventually become pro-abortion. The 36 unarmed black males killed by police in 2015 measured against the total black male population (nearly 19 million in mid-2014 per the Census Bureau) amounts to a per capita rate of 0.0000018 unarmed fatalities by police. They said they would relay our concerns to Matt and perhaps make some suggestions to him. In keeping with the de-militarization approach, they were told that they could not wear them because the department didnt want to look too much like the military for what was supposed to be a peaceful protest. He said he found the interaction "disorienting." Karens a victim. The first red flag I noticed with TVC is whenlead pastor Matt Chandlerpreached a sermonon the Imago Dei and told a story about his friend Leonce Crump, who is black. Still, a Christian, and especially pastors and their wives, should not be contributing to setting forests ablaze with their tongues (or keyboards in this case), especially when grieving members had already explained why it grieves them. Would they have taken into consideration the many times that they had met with me and gotten to know me?
She explained again that this is critical to us. On the day that I was attending the funeral of one of the slain officers in Dallas, one TVC member, who I had briefly been in a small group with, showed absolutely no empathy towards me, not even so much as a Im sorry your fellow officers were killed or How are you doing in light of all of this? and instead told me I was over-reacting to things and that I was the blind one who wasnt being empathetic. Thank you for your service as a first responder, sir, and thank you for sharing this very important information regarding Chandler. The irony of this statement is incredible. But when they saw the butt of Sterlings gun sticking out of his right pocket, and were unable to get control of Sterlings right arm as he reached for it, they were forced to shoot him before he could shoot them. They were simply moving in a direction that we believed was further away from truth and not closer to it, and their members and other followers seemed to be joining them. I have many fond memories of TVC and learned and grew in my sanctification a lot while I was there and Matt Chandler played a big role in that. I pray God leads you in your search for a new church home. Please forgive us.. He said during his sermon, Hopefully, Ill come back, if youll have me, every once in a while and WebWhen an unretired elder or deacon ceases from active service as a member of the clergy and takes full-time secular employment, after a period of two years he or she may be While I believe that even if I had shot him a grand jury would have found my actions reasonable, I was still that close to being the next headline where a white cop shot an unarmed minority. Pastor chooses to accept another call (implied in G-2.0902) 2. Outside of all of the things mentioned up to this point, TVC has continued to promote blatantly anti-police resources. Elders of The Village Church, a multisite Southern Baptist congregation led by Acts 29 president Matt Chandler, sent a letter to members posted online by Too many of themcan easily be left out of a face to face conversation. He seemed very sincere. We loved TVC. Were taken in by it, Sloan said. Our desire is always to be loving and caring. I attended TVC for about seven years. I wanted to assume the best of Matts intentions, so I took him at his word and hoped that there would be no future assumptions about officers without evidence. 10From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Around that same time, TVC had recommended several books to help people pursue racial reconciliation, one of which was a book called White Like Me by Tim Wise. Pastor chooses to lay aside ordination/ask for release from ordained office (G-2.0507); 3. The tongue is set among our members,staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,[a]and set on fire by hell. Now you would think, given that she was a member of the church, and given that her husband just had 12 brothers in blue shot 5 fatally murdered because their skin color and uniform match mine, that Matts first response upon seeing her would have been one of enormous compassion and empathy. But to be honest, I was still deeply concerned about what had caused the assumptions in the first place and about the way he handled those assumptions. I wanted to hear from Matt directly and once again requested a response. In an email sent to the Village Churchs more than 6,000 members, the churchs elders said they were releasing Hinkley from her membership and had reached out to apologize for their actions. This was painful, but affirming, for my family to read. Rob Daniels was one of the panelists and Matt asked him what was going on in his head and in his heart on a week like that and Rob said. After the sermon we went to dinner with another member of the church, who had previously been a police officer, and he agreed that what Matt said bothered him as well. Chandler declined to comment on specific incidents of church discipline due to privacy concerns. After a huge backlash,the church issued an apology. Now I want to give credit where its due, Matt said a lot of very positive things about first responders and I do believe he honestly sought to create understanding and empathy for first responders in this service, but it still came with some frustrating caveats. His wife knew. Your family will be on our hearts and in our prayers thank you for faithfully serving and sacrificing for our communities. For one, it wasnt a panel and it wasnt related to the racial division that were seeing right now. I cant speak to the FBIs processes, Salloum told CT. Jordan was definitely found guilty of this violation which was against SIM policy and, we believe, in violation of US law. Ill try to keep this as chronological as possible so that people can understand the process we went through.
According to an internal report, SIM found that Root had viewed child pornography and fired him in February, two months after the couple had returned to the US. Their arrest numbers square with what CRIME VICTIMS have reported. Complicating the matter is a section of Texas law that deals with marriage annulments. I should also mention that Jen is usually very level-headed and rational, and not typically an overly emotional person. In the course of my relatively short career I have been involved in multiple incidents where I was extremely close to shooting a minority. In this conversation, Matt wasnt defensive. They found that the direct messages he exchanged "revealed something unhealthy.". To add insult to injury, they finally replied to my email and said the earliest we could meet with Matt would be in September, 2 months after we originally reached out and attended officer funerals. In Matts eyes, officers are still apparently guilty until found not guilty, but then theyre still actually guilty. Scripture and science suggest that animal suffering fits into a divine artistic story. Up until those officers saw that gun, they had been trying to wrestle him into handcuffs just like the other officers had with the white guy. They spoke about fear when they see blue and red lights. The Village Church / YouTube. In addition to White Like Me that I mentioned earlier, they also promoted The New Jim Crow. Thanks for your thorough and gracious post! Despite our concerns, he assured us that the church loves and cares about us and other first responders and didnt want to downplay the dangers that officers face every day. I could have been sitting in the passenger seat of my car with my wife and myson in the backseat and doing everything right. You immediately experienced different emotions as you began to process this news and what it meant for you, your family, and your church family. Once the elders were informed, a review was done and they took issue with the conversations. My wife and I are huge fans of Matt Chandler and his direct approach to the gospel, but I have noticed lately its being expressed as what one would call social justice or a social gospel, with the onus on the so called white privileged. In a resignation letter dated December 16, 2014, Beverly Church resigned as Alderman for the 2nd Ward of the City of Marshall. And then once again, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling are mentioned as examples of police brutality. That could have been me, so that provokes a great deal of fear in my heart. Its really a pity that Chanddler and TVC are going down that path. Matt and perhaps make some suggestions to him and myson in the backseat and doing right! 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