Following a 12-week leave of absence for “inappropriate texting” with another woman who wasn’t his wife, Acts 29 leader, Matt Chandler, received a standing ovation from his congregation after being restored to the pulpit at Village Church Sunday morning.

Chandler started by comparing the Christian life to a marathon that can sometimes be difficult but can sometimes be easy where you are not thinking about the things you’re doing. “I very much know that the Christian life’s a marathon,” Chandler said. “And there are times in that run where you’re uphill in the snow and not sure if you’re going to make it. And there are other times when you’re running downhill in the sun and it feels like nothing could ever hinder your love for Jesus and your bold witness.”

He then asked the congregation to forgive him if “in my foolishness, I created any more weight on you, or made this any more difficult on you.”

Chandler said that he is a man who is very serious about his life and doctrine and the fact that he was unable to see the gravity of the situation he was in was “disorienting” to him and that he “needed to understand that.” For that reason, not only did Chandler’s elders implement an intensive plan to help reveal the “unhealth” in him, but he also had a neurological exam to see if “there is something wrong with my brain.”Chandler had a tumor removed 13 years ago, he said, that caused him to lose the right frontal lobe of his brain.

It is still not publicly known what the exact nature of the offense was that Chandler was involved in, however, following the incident, “gay Christianity” Revoice leader, Preston Sprinkle, assured us that the offense was minor and overblown.

Sprinkle said that the woman Chandler had been texting told Chandler “don’t you dare apologize; you did nothing wrong,” and that both Chandler’s wife and the woman’s husband were fully aware of the texting situation and neither was concerned. The “course joking,” Sprinkle said, had nothing to do with sexual or lewd jokes but rather was about alcohol. According to Sprinkle, it was the woman’s friend, who follows a strict “Billy Graham rule,” who became upset and confronted Matt.

“All this to say, I have no problem still having Matt speak at the Exiles conference this year,” Sprinkle said in his letter. “I mean, if we applied the same standard to all the speakers, I’m not sure I’d be able to have any speakers at the conference.”

The restoration coincides with Chandler’s 20th anniversary of taking the pulpit at Village Church.