Ep. 236: Jason Jimenez and Warren Smith Discuss Matt Chandler and Church Discipline

On today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode, we’re featuring a recent interview I had with pastor and author Jason Jimenez. Jason has served as a pastor and ministry leader, and his books include The Bible’s Answer To Live’s 100 Biggest Questions, which he co-authored with Dr. Norman Geisler. He is also the author of Challenging Conversations:  A Practical Guide to Discuss Controversial Topics in the Church. Jason also leads Stand Strong Ministries, and he often posts helpful videos on Christian worldview and apologetics issues. I want to have Jason on the program today because of one of those videos. Jason recorded a short, 13-minute video about a story we’ve been covering here at MinistryWatch, and that’s the Matt Chandler story. If you don’t know that story, here it is in a nutshell.  Matt Chandler is the well known pastor of The Village Church, a megachurch in Dallas.  Chandler was also a founder and played a prominent leadership role in the Acts 29 church planting network.  He recently took a sabbatical from his church following accusations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in his church.  That relationship was not sexual in nature, but included text messages that Chandler admitted and his church elder board ultimately determined were too familiar for him to be having.  (You can read what MinistryWatch has written about Matt Chandler here.) After several months away from the pulpit, Chandler is now back.  And some have criticized him and his church for letting him come back too quickly.  However, Jason Jimenez has a different perspective.  He says this is an example of church discipline that worked. You can see Jason’s video here:  https://youtu.be/z_80I0k8kuo A Few Final Words:  Before we go, I’d like to remind you that MinistryWatch is donor supported.  We take no money from ministries.  All of our content is free.  No paywall.  That means we couldn’t do what we do without faithful donors.  You guys are the real heroes of this enterprise.  So if you’d like to join that heroic group by pitching in to make sure that MinistryWatch remains a viable endeavor, you can go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the “donate” button at the top of the page.  Or click here. And if you donate in the month of February, we’ll send you a really helpful book as our “thank you.”  The book is called Handing Allegations In A Ministry:  Responses and Investigations.  It’s by Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, who we will have on next week’s MinistryWatch EXTRA podcast. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.   We get database, technical, and editorial support from Stephen DuBarry, Christina Darnell, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.