Altar Calls

[Sudsy]

Our church has altar calls once a year at "revival meetings." People who respond are followed up with by the leadership. Generally if it is a person wishing to become a Christian they are discipled through that process and generally begin instruction classes leading up to baptism and church membership.

We used to as well, but they have become rather rare. Some preachers like to do them, but it's no longer the norm. However, people are often encouraged to go home and think about the message, and for younger folks, avail themselves of their parents to talk to if they are feeling spiritually stirred.

Likewise. Even at "revival meetings" they have become optional rather than routine, reserved for when the preacher feels led by the Spirit to include them. When overused, there's often an emotionally manipulative component ("I feel like there's someone else who needs to respond; let's sing one more verse of Just As I Am"). There's also a growing recognition that the practice is an imported one, rather than an integral part of Anabaptist praxis. Not that there's anything wrong with importing and integrating useful things if done with intentionality, but there can be a tendency to turn them into traditions rather than continuing to evaluate their effectiveness.

It could be a play on emotions or it can be giving a person time to work through the struggle they are experiencing until they give their hearts to the Lord. There are testimonies of those who went through this struggle before committing themselves to the Lord. So it can be an emotional tactic or it can also be time for someone in their decision making. I often had my reservations about some sad story given to end a sermon that appeared to get people into an emotional state. This was pretty common in my youth days especially when it involved hell. However, if it was just emotions, then time will tell what kind of change occurred.

[Neto]

....
At the end of the sermon this was common practise -

1) Preacher would say - 'Now with every head bowed and with every eye closed and no one looking around'
2) Then the preacher would state what might be our condition - needing prayer, needing salvation, a backslider, etc
3) As each of these is stated, if any of these included you, you raised your hand
4) Then 'All those who raised your hands, as we sing this last song, we invite you to come forward for prayer'
5) And then the hymn or chorus was sung again and again until the leader thought no more would come.
....

....
When overused, there's often an emotionally manipulative component ("I feel like there's someone else who needs to respond; let's sing one more verse of Just As I Am"). ....

Yeah, the "no one looking around" bit. "I see that hand! Yes, I see hands going up all over the sanctuary! Yes! Yes!"
One time when I was in a chapel service at Bible college, I had arrived a bit late, so sat near the back. (Actually, in the "cage" in the rear of the chapel. The school had been a Jesuit Monastery, and there was a small section in the back that had wrought iron grates that separated it from the main part of the chapel.) Anyway, I looked. He said 'No one looking around", but I looked all over the chapel audience. There weren't as many hands up as he made out....

But I'm not against altar calls. I was, after all, saved on the 16th verse of "Just as I Am". Something like that. I was holding back, until my best friend poked me with his elbow and whispered to me "You need to go up there." And yeah, I did. I needed to, and I did. It might even have been Friday night already, after a whole week of meetings. But it wasn't actually those meetings that let me know I needed it - I had known it for quite some time. But that nudge, that was what I needed to get me moving. I needed to know that my friend knew that I needed it. (Reminds me of another discussion that was going on here, about what to do with the books written by someone who has fallen away from Christ. Well, this friend of mine, at least as of the last time I heard anything about him, is still far from God. So, was that elbow in my side, and the whispered words, were those things a work of the Spirit of God? I don't hesitate to say so.)

But I may have been the one that stirred up some of this about altar calls, by talking about the altar. That's a bit of a different thing in a way, the idea that the front of the 'sanctuary' is a bit more holy than the rest of it. Where did I make my decision? It was there in the pew, close to the front of the church house, but right there beside my friend who care enough to risk our friendship for the sake of my peace with God. That's where I made the decision. Going up was just the first evidence of that decision. I think any valuable decision will be like that - it will show itself by some action. But I don't think that this action MUST of necessity be walking up to the front of the church house. Maybe sometimes the most important part is the counsel received at "the altar", but in my case, I knew all of those verses already. I was "that church kid who always knew the answers in SS class". (That was, in fact, some of my reluctance to respond that way - knowing that I was that kid.)

When I was in Bible Institute, and attending the Assembly of God church on Wednesday nights, once we got there late, and we ended up sitting way up in the balcony. It was sobering to realize that I acted differently up there than I did other Wednesday nights when I was way down front. It was a call to be sure that I was being real, not some sort of fake just acting it out. But it wasn't really that I was faking anything, it was that I let those around me up there in the balcony affect how I responded to the blessing of God. That's a lesson I continue to take with me.

[Sudsy]

I recall my own father's testimony on when he was born again. It wasn't at the altar area but right in the pew area where he was standing. The hymn words were 'pass me not o gentle Saviour' and my dad said 'Lord don't pass me by' and that is where he was born again.

Myself, it was not at an altar either but by my bedside on my knees as my father gave me scriptures from the book of Romans. As a young lad growing up in a Christian home I didn't experience any big life changing moment that I recall although it was emotional. I found out shortly after my first cousin was led to the Lord in a similar way on that same day by his father. Not too long after this we both were immersed in a big city church with a baptismal tank.

Would be good to hear other testimonies here of others and their coming to the Lord for salvation and see how many involved altar calls.