Altar Call

I have been thinking a lot about this since I wrote the blog about Mars Hill's Easter service and the hundreds that were baptized there on that day. What a sad comment it was that I have never witnessed anything like that in the churches I have attended. I'm not talking about hundreds of conversions...I am talking about just one.

Why don't churches offer an altar call every single Sunday or at least one a month? I think if you asked a pastor that the response might be, "Well, what if no one came up, week after week, how would that look?"...or "That's not the way we bring people into the church. They have a talk with the pastor, they learn what it means to be a Christian, than we plan out a day of baptism and accountability."

The first objection is simply one of pride. I would look bad if no one ever came up. The second seems to subject God's ability to transform hearts to a more pragmatic, man-made method of "conversion". Yes, God is working in this person's heart but we really need to make sure they are sincere before putting our stamp of approval on them. I can understand a hesitation of performing adult baptisms and watching people walk out the door and never coming back. But what is the harm? Do everything you can to disciple them from that day forward but don't neglect baptism on the spot because you are unsure of their authenticity. Unless the Spirit is really speaking to you that something isn't right.

I recalled a passage from "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" that talked about Dwight L. Moody, the 19th century evangelist. He was haunted all his life by an occasion when he felt he got too clever in presenting the gospel. Six years before he died he recounted what had happened back in Chicago in the fall of 1871:

"I intended to devote six nights to Christ's life. I had spent four Sunday nights on the subject and had followed him from the manger along through his life to his arrest and trial, and on the fifth Sunday night, October 8th, I was preaching to the largest congregation I had ever had in Chicago, quite elated with my success. My text was "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called the Christ?" That night I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. After preaching...with all the power that God had given me, urging Christ upon the people, I closed the sermon and said, "I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sunday we will come to Calvary and the cross, and we will decide what we will do with Jesus of Nazareth."

Just at that moment, a fire bell rang nearby. Moody quickly dismissed the meeting and sent the people out of the building. It was the beginning of the Great Chicago Fire, which over the next 27 hours left 300 dead, 90,000 homeless, and a great city in ashes. Obviously, Moody never got to finish his sermon series. He continued:

"I have never seen that congregation since. I have hard work to keep back the tears today...22 years have passed away...and I will never meet those people again until I meet them in another world. But I want to tell you one lesson I learned that night, which I have never forgotten, and that is, when I preach to press Christ upon the people then and there, I try to bring them to a decision on the spot. I would rather have my right hand cut off than give an audience a week to decide what to do with Jesus."

Words worth thinking about.