Why I Quit Christianity — Part 2
How Pastor Matt Chandler and The Village Church Helped Kill My Faith In God
How Pastor Matt Chandler and The Village Church Helped Kill My Faith In God
For those interested, you can read part 1 here, which provides additional context for my walk with Jesus from childhood to adulthood. Here is a quick recap:
First Baptist Church of Carrollton: age 2–18, father worked there and had affairs with over 12 women. I was systematically removed from the praise and worship band I helped create, and even my high school youth class, due to high school rivalry, classism, and nepotism.
Denton Bible Church: age 18–22, left alone after each service as my “friends” stood and chatted for half an hour with other church members. When I tried to speak in the group, I was shunned away. When I tried to have my friends help, they became defensive and asked me not to go with them again. I had no car, so that wasn’t possible. The same “friend” would kick my girlfriend out of her Bible study group years later for having sex with me, and since she wouldn’t agree to stop seeing me, neither of us was welcome there.
The following is a more detailed account of the final Christian church I called home. Recalling all of these painful memories has not been easy. But due to some comments I received on my last article (now removed), I had to further explain my journey in more detail.
It’s January 2008, and my girlfriend is three months pregnant. I’m 25 years old, and she is 20. While she has spent years caring for babies and children working in daycares and with the Battered Women’s Foundation, I am the youngest of three boys and have no idea what it’s like to be around a baby. However, I attended church at The Village Church for nearly 3 years. This young but quickly growing congregation is in Highland Village, Texas, and I started going with friends. When I bought my first car, I could begin to go myself, so I attended each week and found the pastor excellent. His sermons were unlike those I had ever heard before, and that’s saying something since I had been a Christian my entire 25-year life. He told life like it was and admitted to not having all the answers. Once, he held the Bible on stage and used it like a magic 8-ball so we could all see how ridiculous it was when we attempted to use the Bible as some all-knowing text.
So, with faith in hand, I walked down to the nursery after service one Sunday and asked for contact information for whoever ran the nursery. I was given an email address and reached out later that night. I stated the truth; that my girlfriend is pregnant and I want to be a good father. I’m desperate. To do that, being around babies and young children would be beneficial as I could learn the basics of changing diapers, bottle feeding, rocking them to sleep, or whatever else I could know in the 6 months I had left before my own baby arrived. I stated how much I loved the Village Church and needed this opportunity.
The next day, she emailed me back and stated she would love to meet with me at the Starbucks around the corner from the church. After sending her a reply with my photo, so she knew what I looked like, it was all set. So, on the agreed-upon date and time, I arrived at the overpriced coffee shop with a polo shirt, my hair nicely combed, and my glasses on. I wanted to put my best foot forward. I ordered and drank a coffee, but she hadn’t appeared. So I sat for over an hour and fifteen minutes, but still no sign.
I had never been given a phone number, so I emailed her and asked if she was running late. Feeling rejected and stood up, I got up and left, depressed. Something might have come up. Maybe she changed her mind? She had chosen option 2, but I didn’t know it yet.
The next day I received an email with the first lie. She stated she had been there for 20 minutes looking for me but never saw me. I replied that over an hour of waiting for anyone who might be looking for someone else had occurred, and I never saw anyone, nor had she sent me her description. However, I still wanted to volunteer, and I wanted to try meeting again. We played cat and mouse for a few more days, trying to set up times and canceling for various reasons, and at no point was I given more than an office phone number, and I never met anyone in person. Eventually, I received the worst phone call of my life.
Not only would I not be allowed to volunteer, but I was explicitly told no since my girlfriend and I “would not be getting married.” I was also told I was “a bad role model” for children. Those are direct quotes I will never forget. Even in 2023, I can still hear those words ring through my mind. But of course, by children, I guess he meant babies who can’t understand anything about dogma, rules, or how to stand, walk, or talk. But don’t worry, he said after telling me how much of a terrible person I was, I still had a “chance to help.” But, of course, I would be “allowed” to take a three-month “getting to know you” class, and at the end, I would be “reevaluated.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a job put you on a performance improvement plan (abbreviated to PIP), but that’s also a reevaluation. No one survives PIPs. Essentially, when you place an employee on a PIP, you are trying to fire them, but you have to show how much of a failure they are to pass it through Human Resources, so you draw up the paperwork, make the employee sign, and wait out the time limit. Afterward, you show them how much they didn’t do the impossible tasks and fire them.
Needless to say, I was devastated and broken. Being told I was a bad example to children before they knew anything about me crushed whatever love I had left for the church. I had tried for years to overlook all the bigotry, logical fallacies, and groupthink that runs rampant in the Christian faith because I wanted this one to work out. I believed that this Church was finally different and would accept me for who I was. Only to find out they were like every other bad-mouthed, two-faced, bigoted church I had tried to attend over the last 25 years.
I emailed them back, stating how wrong they were and how hurtful this person had been on the phone with me. I begged them to allow me to help without “evaluating” me like some kind of ex-convict who couldn’t be trusted around kids. I wanted an apology for being told I was a bad example to children. I wanted an apology for the two weeks of back and forth between the nursery woman who obviously stood me up that day and lied about wanting to meet me, but they wouldn’t hear it. So I received another email stating that this was church policy and that if I didn’t want to go through with it, I wouldn’t be allowed to help out.
I emailed Matt Chandler, the pastor, with nothing left to lose. I wanted him to see through all the bullshit I was fighting and the judgments I was facing. I wanted him to be sympathetic and tell me he could help. Maybe he would meet with me? This man was my Christian hero, and I looked up to him. Surely he would come through. I had already met him after a service one Sunday and told him what was happening with my girlfriend before I asked to help in the nursery, and he seemed kind-hearted about my situation. The following letter has been left intentionally unedited to reflect the exact message he received.
Dear Matt,
This is Patrick Stewart. I don’t know if you remember meeting me a few times or my previous email. I wrote to you probably two summers ago, discussing my disability and the joys that The Village Church has given me. I also met with you a few weeks ago in the front row before service and told you that my girlfriend was pregnant. You asked if we were going to get married, and I said not just right now because we didn’t see the point in complicating things even more than they needed to be. I hope that reminds you of who I am.
But the reason I am writing you is that recently I have been denied the opportunity to help out with our nursery. As I have said, I have a child on the way who is due in July, and I have never taken care of a baby before. With no younger siblings or close cousins, my experience with babies is about as little as it gets. I knew that in order to be a more successful father, I needed to really be around babies. Also, I have been trying to find a way to help out in the church, but because getting into the membership class can be difficult with the limited space, I have as of yet been unable to help in a more productive way, such as playing in the band which is what I’d really like to do. However, after going through the proper channels of volunteering, I have been told that helping out with the nursery is out of the question because my girlfriend and I are not married. I find this VERY troubling, and unfortunately, I find it to be unchristian behavior from the church that means so very much to me. Please allow me to explain why I am so deeply troubled.
Last Sunday, you told us the story of how Jesus called upon fishermen and tax collectors to follow him, and he never turned away anyone. Jesus even helped Mary, the prostitute, when everyone else looked at her with disgust. How can a church turn down someone who needs help just because they have sinned? I hesitate to try to quote scripture to you, of all people, who are an incredible pastor, but the Bible teaches us that all sins are equal in the eyes of God. It doesn’t say that just because one sin is more visible, that person should be denied help. My sin is more visible, yes, but does that make it any worse? Does that mean that I can not change a diaper or play with a child just as well as someone who is married? Why am I being discriminated against for my sin when everyone working in our nursery just as guilty as I am? Many have told me that it “looks bad on the church if they let you help.” If that is true, then at what point do we draw the line between allowing sinners to help and allowing sinners not to help? Also, let’s analyze the statement of looking bad at the church.
Evangelicals will say that being Gay is bad for the church, yet you have always taught us the truth, which is that gays are just as equal as everyone else. Would the church not allow a Gay man to help out in the nursery, either? If so, then that is a political practice of not welcoming sinners into the church just because someone at one point said, “all people who have children out of wedlock are worse sinners than we are.” Do we not see the hypocrisy in this statement? Worse Sinners? How can there be worse sins? Again, all sins are equal in the eyes of God. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is a political practice, not scriptural teaching. I am currently unaware of any passage in the Bible that teaches the Lord’s followers to turn away those who are in need simply because their sin is “more visible” than everyone else’s. The phrase “more visible” is in quotations because that’s what I was told. The political practice has no place in a church of God. Please explain to me why we are allowing political practices to take place in this church?
In the last phone call with the head of the preschool department, I was also told that after a 3-month “getting to know you phase,” then they would reevaluate me. I was also told that I was a “bad role model for children.” That phrase is in quotations for a reason. Being told that I am a bad role model is extremely hurtful to me. I have been struggling with my faith for years because people within the church not being accepting and helpful when people are in dire need of assistance. How can someone who works for the Lord tell me that because I was strong enough to admit that I was having a baby out of wedlock and did not lie about it and that I need help in becoming a better father, now I am a bad role model for children? I am not running away from my responsibilities as a father. I am not refusing to help out with the pregnancy or financially like SO many men of our day. I am doing everything that the Lord would have me do, and to be told that I am unfit to help children learn about the Lord is VERY VERY VERY unsettling for me. It shakes the very foundation of me to hear Christian women tell me that just because I have sinned differently, I am a bad role model.
Matt, I greatly hope that I am wrong here and that somehow my sin is more harmful than others so that I don’t have to believe that the church that I love so much has just hurt me in such a terrible way. Please help me to understand why my sin is so terrible that I would be denied the opportunity to help children learn about the Lord and to gain experience as a father so that my child will have a better chance at life in this world. I do not wish to work in our nursery anymore. I do not wish to help out in my own church anymore. I only wish that you please either explain to me why the position our nursery took was scripturally right under God’s laws or that I am scripturally right.
Please help me to understand this better.
A faithful follower,
Patrick Stewart
In the end, I already knew what the answer would be. I received a message a few days later from some staff member, telling me Matt was away on business with no mention of anything in my letter. About a week later, I received another phone call from the church. Another staff member needed to tell me Matt received my message and, by the tone of her voice, she was not happy about it. She blamed me for my sins and for putting myself in this situation. She told me the evaluation would continue but that it was “my choice” if I ever wanted to help out.
Not only did I slam the phone down on her, but in tears, I threw the chair across my bedroom. I snapped inside and fell to the ground in tears. I cried every last ounce of Christian faith out of my soul that day. After 25 years of fighting every church I had participated in, I was done. If there was a God, he didn’t exist in this church or this religion, and I didn’t want anything to do with it anymore.
I never returned to The Village Church and never believed in God again. Even writing the story hurts me, but people need to know what Christians will do to you when you mess up. They will judge you, own you, make you feel less of a person, and still tell you you aren’t good enough for them.
Fourteen years later and my daughter is now in high school. I eventually married my girlfriend, but we took two years to continue to date, one more year for an engagement, and we were married on October 3, 2010. We had two additional children who are exceptional in their own ways. We continue to raise them with little mention of God. None of them believe Christianity is helpful, but instead see them for what they are, a cult, and they are happy, normal kids. They don’t steal, hurt people, drink, do drugs, or do any other brutal things Christians say atheists do. Despite what the church thinks, it is possible to raise moral, social, helpful, and loving children without beating them over the head about going to hell if they act a certain way. We are a happy family. I don’t need a made-up person in the sky telling me what to do.
I’ll never attend another Christian church again, and when I die, I’ll face whatever happens with dignity and my head held high. But, as I have told many, I’ll tell my story to whoever is there.
If you face persecution from the church, I hope you know you aren’t alone and that I’m here for you. I love you all.
Thanks for reading.
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My Relationship with Christianity & Why I Quit — Part 1
How to Deal with Hateful Christians — Part 3
