Altar Calls

I have never belonged to a church that did not have an altar call, invitation, or response time. I believe these churches call them invitations.

It was/is a time for people to make public any decision or just talk briefly with the pastor.

I have always thought that it was a way of following Jesus by professing him before men.

We cannot know what is in another person's heart.

If one person backslides, is this a reason to not give other people the opportunity to publically announce that they are following Jesus?

If one person is caught up emotionally, is this a reason to not give other people the opportunity to public announce that they are following Jesus?

Maybe it is easy for some people to walk down that aisle and profess their belief and faith, but I don't think it is an easy thing to do.

We must ask ourselves what would Jesus want me to do?

Another note: Most of the time when someone makes a public decision in our church, he/she has already talked with the pastor and understands the plan of salvation and has been saved. We have counselors who counsel each person to see if he understands what he is doing.

 

That is exactly how it is in my church Betty. And many a backslider has gone to the altar to rededicate their life...including me.


Sue

 

Thank God that the coals are still hot on God's alter and just like Isaiah one can come forward
and touch one to their lips and clean up their unclean lips. I will continue to give an alter call and I will from time to time refer to the front of the Church as the alter, I also call it the foot of the cross. In my thinking this is the place where we can publically profess Christ and I will continue to be the first one in the alter after each service. p.s. they sang "without Him" about 10 verses before I finally decided to let go of the pew and head down to the alter and ask Jesus into my heart.
Murph
Murph

 

We have a invitation at the end of our services though it is not drawn out nor are pressure tactics used. I can live with it or without it.
I have seen the altar call misused and promote high pressure easy believism but I am not necessarly against it if pressure tactics are not used and if the overall Church service is God centered and not sinner centered.

A Worship service is not to center on the sinner but the Triune God and should not be designed for the Lost but it is where the Redeemed celebrate salvation. A lost person in this service should leave church saying that he sees a people worshipping God and that this is a place to encounter God. If true Worship is going on, then if one feels led to come pray at the altar area or wishes to speak to the Pastor about salvation or a spiritual problem, I have no problem but I do have problems when manipulation of people to make a decision is used when they may not be ready.

 

C.S. Murphy, Thanks for that wonderfull testimony.

 

No ! No ! and No! I've always felt uneasy about altar calls of the type where the choir sings "amazing grace" or "Jesus I come" while for a full twenty or thirty minutes the preacher calls on the "unsaved" among the congregation to come and "accept Jesus Christ as Personal Savior".
I avoided altar calls when I was pastoring though the seminary I attended and the church that "sent me out" was Arminian to the core and would much rather direct visitors and non-members to the Bible, and hand out free Bibles to visitors so they can read it, and I just pray the Holy Spirit will do what He has to do for them.
I've seen those who brought visitors nudge their visitors with their elbows or feet to go forward.

 

No offense, did you mean here, "leave it all up to the Holy Spirit?" If that was your intention, what is a preacher for, IYO?

Let's set the preacher aside for a moment. He's not there, okay? The service starts and we begin to sing - - what happens next?

 

No offense, did you mean here, "leave it all up to the Holy Spirit?" If that was your intention, what is a preacher for, IYO?

Let's set the preacher aside for a moment. He's not there, okay? The service starts and we begin to sing - - what happens next? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, JIMNSC:
To your first question, I guess we mean the same thing.
To the second, the preacher is to preach the Word and feed the flock. If he insists on giving an invitation, 2 or 3 minutes will suffice but he doesn't have to extend it all that long.
Murph, you don't know the churches they have over in the Philippines. This preacher I have in mind would actually point at you and say,"what are you waiting for ?", and all that stuff.
What. He's the Holy Spirit now ?

 

I agree with Kal-el. I have found that when I used to go up all the time as a teen, that I would go forward and "decide" for Christ something and would forget about it once I returned to my seat. Now I know that I am transformed by the renewing of my mind. I here the truth of the Word from the pastor and see that I need to change and I do what I need to do during the corse of that week (and my life) because I now believe differantly,not because of an alter or persuasive words.

 

Ruthigirl I agree with your points about renewing of our mind but I must ask what is wrong with a person walking to the front of the Church and praying or taking the pastors hand and asking him to pray for you. Jesus hung on the cross publically so why should we not let others see us go to the alter? I suppose I just don't understand what the fuss is about. Let's keep the alter and the alter call but renew our minds and not just walk down a sawdust trail.
Murph

 

1. One problem with altar calls is that people think that "going forward" is somehow going to meet God. God is everywhere present. He can deal with whatever issue right there. Also, some people need to deal with something that the preacher said in the first 3 minutes of preaching. Why wait until the end of the service when you might forget?

As far as praying goes, do it with the preacher afterward.

2. Theologically, I have a problem with the term "altar call" to begin with. I hinted at it in my previous post. The only altar for us is the hill upon which our blessed Savior died.

3. People are too easily manipulated to do something out of guilt.

Let me give an example:

a person came to preach and I heard this individual. In the closing time, he asked who witnesses about Jesus. Some people raised their hand. Then he asked how many people think they should be a better witness. Just about everyone raised his hand. Then he said that they should come forward and get things right with God.

If that isn't manipulation, I don't know what is.

 

My brother as has been the style of some you quoted me but left out the intent of my post. Before making the statements you quoted I agreed with Ruthigirl who was agreeing with you that the important componant was the rewewing of the mind, having agreed with that I simply asked what was wrong with the person who while worshipping had made a new commitment with Christ that they should go to the front and pray or ask prayer of the preacher. Since you have taken up the discussion I would like you to answer the question for me. As to your illustration of manipulation let me look at it another way. Let's say I am in my Church and I have a revival speaker who at the close of a great message asks for a show of hands from everyone who witnesses and after some hands go up he asks whoever believes they should be a better witness should raise their hand. After many raise their hand (including me) he says that we should come forth and get right with God. Now you have condemned this but if I was convicted that I needed to witness then took the natural step to get right with God because being right with God definately includes witnessing and if by coming forward and publically letting everyone know that I am committing to be a soul winner what could possibly be wrong. Should I stay in my seat, should the preacher not have mentioned it? should he not have issued the call to a greater committment? I don't understand please explain.
Murph

 

I see no problem with going up front to pray with the pastor if needed or going forward to ask how to be saved or to become a member. I do have a problem with an evangelist saying please raise your hand if you could be a better witness, (we all could) and then saying now if you mean business with God come forward. That is saying if you do not make an open show of your commitments now then you just do not care about sharing Christ with others. You see I believe that it has become a braging thing all too aften.

 

I would like to relay a personal experience to show what I mean in the above posts of mine:
Not long ago (a month or so) I heard a peacher who preached on telling others about Jesus. I had been burdened for 2 women that I know but did not know yet what steps to take in telling them.
During the message I prayed (way before closing time) and thought of how I should start discipling them. I knew that one on one is the best discipling plan and the Holy Spirit reminded me that I had an extra book from Sunday school on Romans. I decided right then to go to 1 of the girls the next day give her the book and tell her to read Romans 1 and start from there. I have been going though it with her from that time and praise God she was saved on 1-31-03. I did not go forward at the alter call that night although the peacher put a big guilt trip out that night,however why go forward I was convicted and saw the need for biblical change and believed that that was the right thing to do so I did it.
I see no need to have gone forward unless I wanted to LOOK godly to others.

 

Ruthi; Did it ever occur to you that you may have been doing to that girl the same thing you accuse the preacher of doing? "I have been going through it with her". Could you may have made her feel guilty and she professed salvation falsely?

Also, in my experience, I have found that sometimes when we accuse the preacher of 'making us feel guilty'; it is not the preacher but the nudging of the Holy Spirit.

I used to tell my preacher that I thought he had been hiding in a flower pot in my home all week because he would preach on something that bothered me.

Now, the Holy Spirit would know what had been going on; but the preacher could not possibly. There are still preachers who let the Holy Spirit determine what they preach and it is because someone needs to hear it...

As long as the Holy Spirit is in control of the service; I don't care how long or short the 'altar call', 'response time', 'invitation' or whatever you choose to call it lasts. If my dinner burns at home because someone is getting saved. Praise the Lord!

The Pastor is the preacher because he has been called by God to be in that position. He is in the place of authority. Who are we to tell him when to close the service?

I cannot be made to feel guilty unless there is something in my life I need to feel guilty about...


Sue

 

Murph, I got the part where you agreed with Ruthigirl. I was just skipping that part to get to what I wanted to post about. I thought I did answer your questions.

I will try to boil down my argument as concise as possible.

First, for anyone interested, there is a short article that was written regarding altar calls found at this site:

Click here for the artilce of altar calls


Murph, you said:

What does going to the front of a church and getting right with God have to do with each other? Is God only at the front of the church? Of course not. Can that person deal with the issue right then and there? Of course. There is nothing wrong with coming forward in and of itself. I will explain below.

Murph also said:

The condemnation I have for the practice is that it is a manipulative method. If you have not read the article yet, please stop and do so.

How do we offer spiritual worship to God? According to Paul, it was offering yourselfs as a living sacrifice that is changing his mind from worldliness (and sin) to God's revealed truth.

In 1 Cor. 2:1-5, Paul said that he spoke in such a way that people would not be persuaded by his manner of speaking.

Altar calls totally go against that. In my previous post, I gave the perfect example.

Imagine this:
A preacher gives a sermon about the horrors of hell and the glory of heaven. Then, during the altar call he asks who wants to burn forever in hell. No one raises their hand. Then he asks who wants to spend forever in unimaginable glory. Most people raise their hand. Then he says that those who are serious need to come forward and get saved or rededicate or whatever. The whole thing was loaded. He delivered truth mixed with skilled wording to actually cause the desired result.

This happens all over America every Sunday on different levels. It is a tragedy in my mind. People actually equate going forward with getting right.

I don't wonder why Paul never hinted at such a practice.

This is my take on the issue. Each man must be fully persuaded in his own mind on this issue. If you do it, I do not condemn you. It is worth thinking through though.

 

I am blessed 16 , I think you misunderstood Ruthigirl. I did not come away with the same understanding you had of what she posted. I suppose she will have to clarify what she meant.

As a preacher, I can inflict guilt on anyone. That is not necessarily from the Spirit.

Btw, can you provide biblical evidence of an altar call where you would say that the Spirit is in it?

 

To make clear, I am saying that the preacher was giving a guilt trip to not going forward. I agree big time with the preacher preaching the word and tell us to witness! And we should see our need to witness and do so. However my point is that I did not need to go forward to obey what the Holy spirit was telling me to do rather I needed to WITNESS that was after all the whole point of the message so I was responding.

 

I agree with I am Blessed 16 and Murphy...what is all the fuss about?

Feeling guilty is a choice. One can chose to feel guilty or not.

If one person is saved, because of an altar call in a church, then it is worth it.

I prefer to call it an invitation, an invitation to trust Jesus as one's savior, to follow Him in Baptism, to dedicate one's life to His work.

To walk to the front of the church to make public a decision is a person's choice. There is no reason to feel guilty unless the Holy Spirit is leading one to do something and they do not.

Further, I don't really think that anyone thinks that they must walk down the aisle to meet God.

God is with us in the pew and I think most people know that. If they don't, then they need counseling by the counselors who are waiting at the front of the church.