What About The Altar Call ?

Five and a half years ago I preached my first sermon as the pastor of Rivers of Joy Baptist Church, Minford, Ohio The the deacon and music person stopped me before the service with a question. He wanted to know how I’d be making the altar call.

Having known the history of the church and the two preachers before me I knew what kind of altar calls they were giving for the last fifteen years. The church has a long history of closing the service with an appeal to walk the aisle in order to join the church, recommit one’s life to the Lord, or make a public profession of faith. In fact, many of the members had come to see the altar call as the primary means the church used to reach the lost. They saw the altar call as synonymous with evangelism.

WHY NOT GIVE AN ALTAR CALL?

I trust that many who give altar calls have the best of intentions. In my youth back in the day and even while in Seminary and even while working in churches as a Youth Pastor, the pastor ended the service by asking every person in the congregation to close their eyes and bow their head. Next he would invite anyone who wanted to receive Christ to raise their hand and look toward the pulpit. For about thirty seconds the pastor would scan around the hall, notice the raised hands, and in a calm, soothing voice say, “Yes, brother, I see you. Good, sister, amen,” and so on. I believe this pastor meant the best for these seekers. The music would play, and the song leader would lead the congregation in Just As I Am. And for the next few verses the pastor would plead for people to come to the altar. And over the years I must say there were some cases where the pastor did a good, and other cases there was a very poor presentation of the gospel.

WHY I DO NOT BELIEVE THE ALAR CALL OR INVITATION AT THE END OF THE SERVICE IS WISE TO DO

These are just a few reasons why I think it’s unwise to use the altar call for evangelism.

When I was in Seminary and was attending a church, they all had a visitation/soul winning program. We were ask to go out into the community and share the gospel and invite people to be saved and come to our church. We were to give a ten minute Romans Road presentation of the gospel and ask them to invite Jesus into there heart. And then invite them to church to make it public and get baptized and join the church, all in ten minutes. One pastor of a church said just to invite them to church and he would preach the gospel and they would get saved. And he did and he would plead for them to come forward.

So the question one might asked, "how do you believe a person becoming a Christian if you don't give an altar call?" My answer is "why do you see a person getting saved by giving an altar call?" One might say,"Well, the preachers preaches the gospel and then ask the sinner to get saved." This is the general response of many people in churches today. Even in churches where all the people are "saved" the preachers feels the obligation to give an invitation and invite sinners to be saved, join the church, be baptized.

The question is “Is the church worship service a place where sinners get saved? Is the purpose of the worship service and the preaching the means where by people are supposedly to get saved?

In our church at Rivers of Joy Baptist over the last five years, there have been some who have attended that are not Christians, but 90% of the time those who attend are saved. So should people invite sinners to come to church and hope the pastor has a great salvation sermon and they will get saved that Sunday? My answer to that is NO. Well that is what happens at a Billy Graham meeting doesn't it? Doesn't ever sermon end up with a invitation to invite sinners to get saved?

I am so convinced that the altar calls at those meetings with Billy Graham, or any other place that ask for salvation like that is really quite dangerous. Why would you say that?

While I will say there are those who do really become Christians upon their first visit to the church, there are more that do not become one. A person comes to the altar or to a prayer room after the service and upon giving them the Roman Road verses and they pray, they are announced saved and born again and can't lost their salvation. There is a danger in this process.

How often have I read where the church reports that 600 people have just been saved. (Perry Noble announces almost every week the number that was saved that Sunday) To announced at a person has been saved, after only one moment in his life is really dangerous. Why? How do you know after five minutes that the person has been saved?

The problem of granting people immediate assurance of salvation without taking the time to test the credibility of their profession seems unwise at best and harmful at best. After five minutes the pastor or anyone else cannot know sufficiently that a person has really been saved. What happens many times the person is given by the person talking to them the false confident that they are truly saved. The 600 people announced that was saved, or even the five people announced that was saved, how can you know unless there has been a time to test their credibility of their profession?

What if a person who is attending the church and is not saved how should the preacher preach?

Be clear about the gospel.

Be clear about the gospel. Preach the whole gospel, not just a few words at the end of the sermon. I preached a sermon from Romans 10:9-17 about God's plan for bringing His elect to salvation.

Call people to repent and believe.

In the sermons I preach there in is the Word of God. Every person who is present is to listen with the idea to obey what the Word of God is teaching us to apply to our lives. Every person is responsible to carefully listen and study and know the message of the sermon from the Biblical text that is been preached.

In a sense every message is a salvation sermon. How so? Salvation is not just a one time response to a call to be saved, but one that is to continue to call upon the LORD every day of our lives. Salvation is a means whereby we live a holy acceptable life that glories the LORD.

The preachers responsibility is to preach the Word of God, book by book, chapter by chapter. His sermons should be in the context of the passage of Scripture he is preaching. I don't believe you should add on an invitation to get saved when the sermon has not address how one should become a Christians.

So then how is a lost person to become a Christian if the preacher does not preach a salvation sermon and ask them to get saved and have an altar call or invitation? Good question. I preached that sermon from Romans 10:9-17 that gives that answer.

Every person who is a Christians should be in the mindset of talking to others that are not saved about their lost condition. They should be the one who gives them a clear understanding of what it means to become a Christian. And again it is not wise to announced that they are saved upon their first response. Share with them the gospel yes, ask them if they desire to be saved, give them time to understand. And if the Holy Spirit gives them the understanding to believe then that will happen. Then offer them your time to help them understand what it means to be a Christian. It is called discipleship. Then ask them to come to hear the preaching of the Word of God.

.

[1] For a detailed treatment of the dangers of the altar call read Erroll Hulse, The Great Invitation: Examining the Use of the Altar Call in Evangelism (Audoban Press, 2006) and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers (Zondervan, 2011), chapter 14.

2] Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Banner of Truth, 1985), 80.

What Are Some Concerns About the Altar Calls, Invitation in Churchesand Meetings

THERE ARE SIX DANGERS PORTENTAL IN ALTAR CALLS

1A    DANGER 1: CAN GIVE PEOPLE A FALSE SENSE OF SALVATION

Individual can be easily lead to believe that their trip down the aisle during an altar call at a Billy Graham meeting is somehow equal to salvation. The public’s act of going forward can so be intertwine with genuine act of faith salvation that confession results. People began to believe that they are saved by this act rather than by Christ.

2A    DANGER 2: CAN MAKE PEOPLE THINK THEY HAVE MERITED THEIR SALVATION

By a public act as a point of salvation can lead a person to think that they have done something  to merit or get  their salvation which compromises the doctrine of Grace.

3A    DANGER 3: CAN LEAD TO AN OVER-EMPHASIS ON THINGS THAT DO NOT NECESSARILY SIGNIFY TRUE CONVERSION.

Altar calls can lead to an over statement of public responses, for the public decisions. But a public decision for Christ is not always a good way to judge, or a good indicator of true conversion.  In fact, usually, it quite the opposite.  History has repeated shown that public decisions have proven to be quite unreliable as barometer  as a  gauges of true salvation . And scriptures teach that the fruit of true conversion will only be evidence in the lives of a believer over time.     

  

4A    DANGER #4      CAN ECLIPSE THE REAL CAUSE OF CONVERSION

Altar calls can hide from view, cast a shadow on,  eclipse the real cause of conversion.  The real cause is not the decision or the appeal, or the walking of the aisle, nor even the sinners prayer, nor the felt emotion of the moment as the emotional music is softly played in the background. True Conversion is cause by the Holy Spirit who draws some to believe as the gospel is proclaimed, and that will happen where are or not an altar call is giving.  Repeat that.    

5A    DANGER 5  GIVES SOME CHURCHES FALSE CONFIDENCE BY MAKING THEM THINK THEY ARE INDEED EVANGELIZING      

Some churches think that they are evangelist merle because they use altar calls. But in reality many churches are slow brought into evangelistic passativity where their only attempts are at the altar calls. (I remember Dr. Barber saying back in 1966, “You get them here and I will get them saved at the altar.”) Be the church or the individual, some began to believe its at the altar call at the end of the service. Which in many cases the services are so diluted with the presentation of the gospel,  so unbiblical in their presentation  of the  whole gospel that they are consistence fruitless, regardly of how many come forward and appear to respond to receive Christ.

6A    DANGER # 6HISTORY SHOWS ALTAR CALLS PROVE TO SHOW CONSIDERABLE MISCHIELF

The historical record will show altar calls have proved to show considerable mischief. Which was predicted by the Methodic when altar calls first was introduced in the early 1800.s. And have proven to be very correct in their first judgment of that. Gospel presentation have grown increasing diluted, much shorter and incomplete. False conversion has become at an huge rate in the modern church. And God truth and way have been hidden as a result. A countless thousands have been and continue to be lead into an emotional response without a clear understanding of what they are responding to.  As a result false conversions have abounded.

I really hope this makes sense to you, while I am not anti altar calls, per say, anti  churches that use altar calls the right way. The simple fact of the matter is some churches believe they are evangelist by using the altar calls. But in reality they are not at all. If that is the only time you believe a person can be saved is at an altar then that is wrong too.  If you are saying “Well no one is getting saved in our church,” then you have fallen into the lull of believing that the church service is the only place a person can be saved.

I am quoting a comment made by this video:

·       It is amazing that you think your understanding about altar call and the doctrine of salvation is THE TRUTH. It is unfortunate that brethren like you are out there to attack the move of the God you are supposed to be working for, God have mercy. I have used alter calls based on the Bible and have seen fatastic real, and lasting decisions for Christ followed by a godly life style.

IS DECISIONAL REGENERATION GOD'S METHOD OF SOUL WINNING?

Decisional Regeneration is not God’s method of evangelism, and the saving of the human soul. Part two

· Who's Charles Finney?

• Reacting against the pervasive Calvinism of the Great Awakening, the successors of that great movement of God's Spirit turned from God to humans,

• from the preaching of objective content (namely, Christ and him crucified)to the emphasis on getting a person to "make a decision^."
• ^{http://withchrist.org/Finney-Horton.pdf}

· William McLoughlin summarized Finney's major contribution to revivalism by saying that,

• both he [Finney] and his followers believed it to be the legitimate function of a revivalist to utilize the laws of mind in order to engineer individuals and crowds into making a choice which was superficial based upon free will.

· The results justify my methods.

• This factor helped lead later generations of evangelists to adopt Finney's success theme as the barometer of God's blessing.·
• Billy Sunday stated, "theory has got to go into the scrap heap when it comes to experience."

• In effect, this statement meant that the historic doctrines of grace could be ignored if not altogether rejected by the evangelist

• Indeed, D.L. Moody picked up on this reasoning when he said, "It makes no difference how you get a man to God, provided you get him there."

• Until his conversion, Finney claims to have only heard that type of preaching where the pastor would blandly read his sermon, telling the congregation that they should sit and wait upon God to save them.

• These memories greatly affected the young convert. He took this style and content of preaching to be the practical outworking of Calvinism.
• In his view, the passivity of man in salvation brought deadness into the pews.

• Therefore, his preaching and his methods were designed to catch the sinner's attention, and once caught, to create an emotional outpouring that would result in conviction, which would then result in conversion.

• Among the "new measures" that Finney employed to do this work were protracted prayers and meetings, the anxious or inquirer's meeting, the anxious bench, public prayers for know sinners, coarse and irreverent language, and women praying in mixed gatherings

• Was this judgment of the Calvinistic pulpit methodology a fair one? After all, had not Jonathan Edwards "blandly" read his sermons? And yet, his ministry was blessed in the First Great Awakening. The key to this question is not found in methodology, but in theology.

• The deadness that Finney perceived, was not due to the methods (or lack thereof) which were used in the pulpit, but to the type of response required of the congregation.

· In contrast to this, Jonathan Edwards and, later, Asahel Nettleton (who was a contemporary of Finney)

NeASAHEL NETTLETON: 1783-1844 (note footnote)

• exhorted their hearers, upon coming under conviction of sin, to go privately before the Lord and plead for their souls. Both of these committed Calvinists witnessed great spiritual awakenings under their ministries.

· At issue is Finney's definition of "revival."

• The debate over methods was, in reality, a debate over the proper means of conversion.

• Finney, believed that a revival "is not a miracle or dependent on a miracle. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means."

ALTAR CALLS

lll

Growing up independent fundamental Baptist, I've sat through my share of altar calls, feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt at over half of them. When I was growing up, I thought "Just as I am" had 327 verses. I remember rolling my eyes when so and so went forward (like they did every Sunday). And I remember being upset when someone waited until the 326th verse of Just as I am to FINALLY go forward.

The traditional altar call is gone from many churches (and I'm not so sure that is a bad thing... at least the way we did it growing up). But thanks to YouTube, you can now re-live all the glory that was 'the altar call' with this new release.

Take a look: