Dating Conference 2016 Q & A Matt Chandler

hey would you guys welcome my bride Laurin anyway you want me to answer first so you can think or do you want depends on the question okay so Lauren would say that I'm a fast processor which means I process information really quickly and she would say that she's not as fast so sometimes she wants me to answer first but not always true I feel like my brain goes through all these like different trails and I needed to come back together and you just let me know okay so do we want to look at the they're gonna put them on how to ask a girl out well that's pretty basic I like I like starting there um you want to take this one and I think why don't be direct without what how direct I know what how you not be Friday 7:00 I mean she at least needs to know who you are know your name I mean that could be a little weird I don't know you did this I did too it just won the UH oh wow I have something on I know the so I there there are and that's why you know QAS can get difficult because I don't know what's all if this is someone you know and someone that's kind of been in your crowd and they know who you are and you've kind of picked up on some vibes that this might be possible then you just ask to my help and you just make it clear what you're doing hey will you go to dinner with me I'm thinking this is a date so if you remember what we talked about the the woman that was at our house this morning she said no no he asked me on a date like he he said it's date you don't want to hang out or have a cup of coffee we've already done that he said I want to take you on a date and so you should try that it's a risky thing and an awesome thing and if she says no the Lord has something better for you supper okay can you refocus a relationship and make it good and god-glorifying after physical boundaries have already been crossed you want to go Mimi I like oh okay I didn't know if you look at me because you had it or you look okay of course it is of course it is but I don't pretend that it's easy so I don't want to ever kind of put something out there you know the easy thing is well absolutely you know grace of God covers everything I think you've opened Pandora's box and it's going to be extremely difficult and so therefore you're probably going to have to put some things in place for your own good that other people are going to probably think are crazy and and so I think you start now you're going out in groups and man you're you're having people pick you up not driving y'all's car so yeah I mean yours figuring out how to not be alone because where you've always are already been will be wooing you and you're gonna have to fight the good fight now gonna know I want to know this person soul not just have their body and that's just a hard thing to do once this has been broken but it's not impossible I think if this is a secret that's a huge problem so if you've got on your smiley Christian face and you know you guys are holding hands and just Jesus loves purity and no one knows you've crossed these boundaries then that's a matter of confession to those who can hold you accountable a you will I think even with the kind of boundaries we're talking about building unless you pull in people who know this has happened and can walk in accountability with you and then I just don't know that you got much of a fighting chance darkness grows in the dark and I think confess it to people that you know will hold you accountable because I think a lot of times if you confess it to someone that probably is struggling in the same way in their relationship then you kind of get to be like oh it's okay but to confess it to someone that may be a married couple or Ament some people that are mentors in your life I confess it to them so that they can hold you accountable that they can check in with you and it's not kind of going to just encourage you to keep it in the dark if that makes sense and then also I would I would it's good that you're one team to change things and I would imagine that you want to change things because plea you want possibly to marry that person and so I would also warn you that I think the lie that we can start telling ourselves as well we're going to get married anyway so it'll be okay and it won't be okay you will struggle you'll bring that into your marriage there is there's something about not being pure and not being faithful kind of and I don't mean not being faithful to each other but just not being faithful to what the Lord calls for your relationship before you're married you will reap some of that in your in your marriage and it takes a lot of time to work back through that so I would just encourage you even if you're getting married do what you can to reach out to someone not someone that's kind of in the same place as you but someone that maybe is a little bit further down the road and wouldn't be afraid to ask you the hard questions and then to call you on it yeah would you date a boy or girl that is not a Christian I'm sorry okay so I think this is ultimately a question of what is your ultimate goal or treasure I think honestly that's how you answer this question if your ultimate goal in life is to please the Lord and to serve the Lord then then I think this is an easy question absolutely not because it would be impossible to do if we've been called in companionship to partner with one another then we're pulling in two different directions so if one saying hey this house is going to serve the Lord and we're going to live our lives in such a way we're giving money here and we're ordering our lives like this and here's the way we're going to pursue holiness and the other person doesn't recognize any of that as normative or or right they see it as alien and strange then I don't know how you do it now if that's not how you see the goal of relationships to play itself out then then I can see how you can justify this and that's why I said when I was teaching that there really our our day and age wants to put hyper emphasis romance and on sex but the Bible puts all the emphasis on companionship and partnering with sex as a gift for intimacy and romance so you've got to get that in the right order I think to flourish and so the question gets asked often because I think that people don't understand that the purpose of relationships is really a partnership for the gospel so Lauren and I have been put together by the Lord knit together as one the Bible would call us one flesh for the purpose of making much of the name and renown of Jesus Christ in our ministry together at the village church and the raising of children in those people that we have in our home to talk about Jesus with the people we walk alongside who aren't Christians yet but we have them in our dinner table we do life with them hoping that they'll become that that's what this is what we have in common and and I love it to watch Lauren minister to women and watch Lauren minister to others is one of the sexier things imaginable because we're partnering one another in this great calling so to watch her operate in that space is stunning it's an aphrodisiac it's amazing and and but if you don't see your relationship that way and you see them as purely romantic and sexual well then yeah you can but I don't like well I don't quite understand what the purpose of the relationship is sexual gratification well I mean in my understanding of the Scriptures full sexual gratification can never be had by you because you can come together physically that's pretty easy right you can come together maybe in some planes intellectually but dode what you've been created for the mingling of souls you can't have it and so sex what you'll hit a ceiling with with sex just like you hit a ceiling with everything else outside of Christ so it's not like Christians are non-christians are miserable being non-christians they just don't understand there's something beyond what they're currently experiencing right so like non-christians can enjoy the pleasure of sex they can enjoy the pleasure of a good glass of wine or a good scotch they can enjoy great food but they can't worship the giver of that and so their pleasure terminates on itself so this is about what our priority in life is anything yeah I mean I I wonder if this guess this was a Christian asking and I wonder if the motivation is kind of maybe they have their eye on someone and they think well kind of that missionary dating a strategy that you know being in our well me in my mid to late 30s near 40 just 42 I'm 36 anyway uh just having friends that you know they they married a man or a woman that you know they dated and the person wasn't a Christian but they were open so they go to church with them they go to stuff like this with them and what's so confusing is um that you can feel all these things you know emotionally with this person and and maybe the things that they're feeling are more towards the person than they are towards God and so they have this experience and they think oh it's because I you know I'm saved now I'm a Christian now but really it was in order to get that person so really the heart's desire wasn't God it was this relationship and so then they get married thinking they're both Christians and and it's not going to last I mean they're going to be disappointed they're the other person the Christian in the relationship originally is not going to be enough to satisfy the other spouse and so it will it'll show that really the conversion wasn't true really they they used God to get that relationship and it can end tragically and in marriage so it's kind of like I'm the warning person tonight but it's true I think I can think of people with names and faces and kids and so that would be my okay what advice would you give to people who are dating on how to keep a christ-centered relationship okay another look now took me a second we haven't done the Q&A in a while so a little rusty so this is a hard question and I'll tell you why it's a hard question it's a hard question because we've been I think we're uniquely designed and uniquely wired and so I think there's some things that will be consistent across this I think you'll want to worship together I think one of the ways you can see where this thing is going is do you guys like the same church or are their theological breakdowns already I mean one of you like covenantal and the other ones Baptist Akande you know what were you going to do with that and that's a great conversation to have and so I I think by attending church with one another being in the scriptures praying for one another although I don't know that I recommend that you to kind of go find a quiet place and pray over each other you know for an extended period of time remember what we said as you grow together spiritually and emotionally the urge for physical grows as those two things are growing so I think spiritual growth always involves the scriptures that always involves transparency and always involve prayer and worship and so you're doing those things together while you fight the fight of purity and I think those are things that really Center the relationship on the law yeah and I think encourage one another in your relationships with you know you're the same sex so like if you're the guy in the relationship encouraging her in her relationship and community with our girls and like just that discipleship like how's that meeting with them how do you have someone pouring into you and then likewise the the woman thing to the man hey you know who are the guys in your life to make sure that they've got community around them so you don't have to be it because that's where I think you can get in trouble but to encourage each other to be pursuing those relationships in that community yeah it's not uncommon even now for Lauren to go hey did you talk to Josh about that as though hey are you are you talking this through with other men love you the Lord and love you and so that's a great add to what if I struggle with physical appearance and don't think men find me attractive well I mean I always feel like I want to say I'm sorry here and I'm sorry for the cultural moment that you find yourself in I think that the the Word of God is true and all men are liars and I think the Scriptures say that you're fearfully and wonderfully made and beautiful and the Lord doesn't think he's made anything that's ugly and and not phenomenal and so it is you have been discipled to think of yourself this way and the men of this day have been discipled to think of women in a specific way and so I would as best you can allow the Word of God to inform how you see yourself and and then men I would hold fast and grow in your relationship with the Lord and cling to him and never Apollo if you want to get married you want to men never apologize for that you want that but be careful that you don't begin to play a part in order to try to get one and I mean I'll try to flesh that out then what I've found over the years specifically when I was doing college ministry is is girls who didn't find themselves attractive they would then begin to kind of wear this veneer of kind of the funny girl that you couldn't hurt her feelings or the you know it was this kind of mask to try to hide her fear and insecurity you know and just plead with you not to give in to that but to really just chase the Lord grow comfortable with who you are in Christ and then then you just pray that in the right time and in the right space the Lord would send you who who he would send you so we have a beautiful friend who felt this way for a long time and really wrestled and was deep into her 30s before a man put his eyes on her and began to pursue her and wouid she's married now and doing great it took a while but she was faithful to not play a part she was just she was going to be faithful to the Lord and pursue the Lord and we can do that kind of Jesus as my husband talk if you want but I don't I don't know that that's ever been helpful I just think that man you pursue the Lord your Worth and value isn't predicted or built upon a man's opinion of you but God's opinion of you and so and again I know all of that might just land on deaf ears but it doesn't mean it's not true what I keep thinking is some of the most beautiful women I know they're the most beautiful not on physically and but when they're right in the middle of what the Lord's called them to do and they're doing it and they're they're serving they're using their gifts in a way that they're delighting in the Lord and and they're feeling alive because they're right exactly where the Lord has them and they're there they're satisfied and that and I don't mean satisfied as in they don't long for a husband or they don't long for a relationship but satisfied in the lord's delight in them and so I think I mean I just I can see women in my mind who you know according to our culture wouldn't wouldn't fit like a certain picture but are more beautiful than women that I would see I know that would fit the picture because they're right in the middle of what the Lord's called them to do they're doing it they're delighting in him and they're feeling the delight of the Lord and I don't know if that helps at all if you can receive that but I don't know maybe that's just a word for someone in particular he was either watching or in this room but but you're beautiful when you're right in the middle of what he's called you to do and he delights in you and that delight just overflows yeah so don't wait for a man to start serving the Lord in fifth gear should I do online dating sure should I yeah I can expound on it I mean you can there's nothing prohibitive in the scripture no old we don't know I know why but we have friends that have done it where yeah sure so the other yeah I guess it depends on you know what kind of dating website you're going to you of course yeah but I didn't I didn't thought I would need this particular yeah ever now yeah I think if you want to try online dating there's nothing wrong with online dating I think you're still looking for the same things and hoping for the same things right and I and you know this I pray you know this but there's a lot of stuff online that is not true okay yeah there's one guy that totally ripped some some man's comedy routine and put it on his wall but he did not fight the comedian and our friend figured it out and he would not own up to it some crazy people out there you heard can you struggle with pornography and date well or not what growth would need to be seen in that area before okay I do not think you can date well and be addicted to pornography so so let me let me flush this out but one of the things that's hard for me as the dad of two little girls well not even I've got a 13 year old and a 7 year old is that pornography what we've seen is this great social experiment of pornography unleashed on a full generation and sociologists specifically secular sociology can't seem to put together the rise and rapes and molestation with the rise of the usage of pornography and so you've got women that are now seen almost completely as commodities to be used and abused a type of sex that's made up a type of like no woman has an orgasm while being punched in the face or fishhook or her hair ripped out of I mean this is absurd it's the I know you can't you can't because if you're addicted to pornography you have rewired your brain to consider women as something to be consumed and not something to be valued you cannot simultaneously value a woman and consistently use pornography pornography is not a victimless viewing it's just not and listen statistically speaking three quarters of this room has this issue both male and female so I'm definitely not trying to crush you with what I'm saying I'm saying that what we're learning scientifically is that the consistent usage of pornography rewires the brain so what I get to see is the 42 year old man 45 year old man who can't have sex with his wife until he watches pornography so that he can get an erection now think about the damage that does to his wife's soul how can she compete right and then think about what what normal guys are trying like degrading like here's that I love this one I don't know like there would be nothing around for me to degrade her or be forceful or violent with her and yet the type of sex that pornography teaches is not lovemaking right it's not it's something perverse and twisted and and if you're in that world consistently with your mind I don't think you can date well and so what needs to happen before is there needs to be confession and there's means to be as seriousness about putting to death it's so normalized now that that even a confession would probably not do much for am I going well yeah of course but but I'm saying that that until you can start to slay that dragon I would I would not pursue a woman I just don't think you're ready I think you would put yourself in really dangerous situations and if you're a woman that asks this question because this is not just a male issue then I would say the same things men can be viewed as commodities in fact one of the things I'm learning as I've gotten older in the church has stayed in that age range that it's been these last few years as women have become far more aggressive than they were when I was your age when I was in college women were not as aggressive as they seem to be now for whatever variable so if you're a woman that's using a man as a commodity because you don't think he cares chances are he doesn't but there's still damage being done to your soul and and I just wouldn't walk through that minefield until I started to sense some victory over that area of my life and so I'd be radical about it right I mean Jesus says if your hand causes you to stumble cut it off so what I mean by that before you take me someone I'm not going is is more like if that's your computer then man work at the library right don't have a computer in your house all by yourself there plenty of OpenDNS would be a filter at your router that would filter out all your devices right there are ways to protect yourself you just got to be willing to see this as a serious issue and an attack it okay okay how soon is too soon to start thinking with marriage in mind and a dating relationship I I started dating Lauren thinking I was going to marry her so right before I asked her out but you don't wanna be weird about it right you're like hi my name is Matt by the way you know you know you don't want to do that so here's the thing if you're thinking so again let's go back and have this conversation if you're thinking that the goal of relationship with the opposite sex is partnership in the gospel for the glory of God and our joy and good then then the end goal of dating is marriage right and so it depends on the person and what you guys have already talked about how long you guys have known each other so the guy that was filming earlier our what was that called mana caning or what did we do I don't know when we all know manikin if the mannequin challenge okay when we were so Rick who was filming that he met who he's married to now when they were in daycare right Keith it is and so they were kind of on again off again right their whole lives she played soccer out at UCF and so he moved to Orlando in they didn't then they broke up and then they got back together again and then so when they started dating again I mean marriage was just kind of on the horizon right it was just happening so that's the story where you've known each other you're alive you've been friends and so that comes up fairly quickly I would say if you're on your second date probably not the time to bro that but you've just got to fill it out I don't I don't think there's a like right or wrong answer here yeah I think it just depends and I mean you just might know it's like you bring it up and they're like what what have you seen you want to fill that out that out cuz I think about like oh yeah yeah okay I mean it happened and then you might still get married yeah one of my closest friends he's married to this girl now but they had dated for years and then he I mean he never kissed her until their wedding day dated five years didn't kiss her and tell their wedding day which is it was an oak and and he one night he he walked her up to the front door which he usually didn't do usually just let her on the car and waited until she went in right he didn't want to put himself in that kind of dangerous moment and he walked her up to the door and he said I love you I think I love you and she said I'm not ready for that right I mean they've been dating a couple years that's not like good second date I mean they've been together a couple years I think I might love you I'm not ready for that now the good news is a couple of years later they actually got married and now he's like I love you and she's like I love you too let's have four kids and that's what they've done that's great oh wow how do you go about healing from an emotionally abusive relationship what are some practical steps to guard your heart from bitterness and building walls yeah I think this is such a complex question I'm anxious about even diving into it my first concern for you whoever you are is that you would get yourself safe and you would position yourself out of harm's way and you would find a place of safety and then once we're safe we can start healing I think healing takes a long time far longer than we want it to take but here's what I can tell you I grew up in a home that had quite a bit of abuse in it and it's I'm 42 and I still at times get stuck in some spaces I don't know how to navigate need to get help and so at 42 I think I've seen four different counselors and have gone into intensives try to get to the bottom of things that are broken in me and so I can I understand at some level what you feel and where you are and I would say the first step is safety and then the second step is getting some help and and I would recommend professional help and and sometimes what I mean by that is even more than just a good biblical counsellor I would start with a good biblical counsellor and then go from there but but sometimes if the souls really broken then then we need a good biblical counsellor and we also need some other help and so I would just encourage you you need to get some professional help I would recommend starting with a strong biblical counsellor but first thing is I want you to get safe and then gather around you a group of women or men that can help you not continue to make those kind of decisions yeah I mean there's not much I can add but just says there's no shame and going to a counselor and they're going to be able to dig around in your heart and in mind in a way that maybe just you know your home group or community group might not be able to so yeah okay I think we have time for one more well prophet how do we approach figuring out physical boundaries in a relationship this is my favorite dating question ever how far is too far if we can have real talk I think hand-to-hand leads to mouth-to-mouth which leads to tongue to tongue which leads to hands to body which leads to so here's the thing it's an act of progression I nobody ends up just sleeping together right it's this act of progression and each act takes you on to the next act it's just how it works it's how it's worked throughout human history right and so the best thing to do is not get the ball rolling and if you cannot get the ball rolling then you got a real shot because um kissing leads to more than kissing right so I'm gonna tell you not to kiss I'm just saying I'd be careful how you kiss right and and so on their honeymoon the the Solomon and his bride he talks about what's kissing her and what's under her that honey is under her tongue so he's talking about a kind of kissing there that it wasn't taking place before there and so again I just think acts lead to other acts that's how it always works and so I would just be real careful about what you start and when you started and so kudos to Josh Patterson for making it five years without her kissing his girlfriend that was not our story but I think you do need to be real careful of the progression of things and paying attention to the progression of things I mean this is a conversation I have with my 13 year old daughter right now like right now like but if before long it's not going to it's going to be that's nice and then that nice leads to other nice things right but there's a reason why you can't have nice things until it's time to have nice things and so that's that's a conversation that we'll have I'm sure so all right honey will you pray for us sure yeah father thank you that nothing is hidden from you and that can be somewhat terrifying but because you are good and loving father to know that that you you love us you want what's best for us you aren't the father that is being cruel and keeping good things from us but you want to get you want to take the things that seem good right now and you want to tell us to wait because you've got better things later and so it's hard to do that and and you know that you know it is because you know us you know how you put us together and so Lord pray that you would just help us to see those things with your eyes so easily we can see just what's right in front front of us what's right now the lord help us to see just kind of give us a long view of life a long view of what you have for us lord thank you that your your grace is sufficient or those of us that feel like we've already blown it better than we have but there is grace there and and we get to start over mercies are new every morning and you are so kind and lord in our weakness your strength is made perfect and so thank you for that promise thank you for just that tender care of our hearts Lord pray that you would seal the things in that we heard tonight that are from you and do anything that just was a little loss Lord that you would just kind of blow that away but what you have spoken to your people tonight would would bury itself deep and bear good fruit in our lives and we asked us on the name of Jesus amen amen thank you guys for coming out we had a great time yep

Channel: Brett Xiang

Views: 26,945

Keywords: Matt Chandler, dating conference, Christianity, bible, gospel, jesus, God, new testament, old testament, Christian dating, how do I ask a girl out, Christian boundaries, accountability, dating non-Christian, struggle with pornography, online dating, Christ centered relationship, struggle with physical appearance, start thinking with marriage, healing from abusive relationship, christ, Biblical counselling, Biblical counselor, dating questions, how far is too far, advice on dating

Id: 2nhr5pTZTIw

Length: 31min 58sec (1918 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2017