Morality or Spiritual Transformation?

Here is an excerpt from a message by Matt Chandler in which he addresses why people become “de-churched” – walk away from God and the church. He looks at an approach to Christianity where we focus on doing good or moral things, what Chandler calls “moralistic deism.”

The problem is that when bad things happen, we feel that God owes us something. The problem with this is that God doesn’t owe us anything, and good people in the Bible deal with suffering all of the time.

These words are particularly poignant when you know that Chandler himself has been fighting cancer over the past couple years.

For those of us in ministry, the challenge is how do we introduce people to a relationship with God that leads toward true transformation, not just calling people to moral lives. There must be a greater aim.