Alter Calls

  • Thread starter Thread starter Singinbeauty
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Altar calls are the Protestant recognition of the need for confession and repentance.

As Martha would say, “It’s a good thing.”
 
Flopfoot said:
I once went to a Pentecostal service with a friend (he didn’t tell me beforehand that it was a service, rather that it was just a youth gathering).

I hated it. From the terrible poppy music to the cake in the face bible guessing games to the “come up and boast about your recent converts” bit to the scriptural reading that was read 4 times until we had oxen on the brain to the 1 hour sermon that wandered off topic and was just utterly ridiculous.

So maybe you understand just how I feel when I say that all of that is nothing compared to how much I hated the altar call. It seemed to me like some sort of brainwashing ritual, or some kind of deception where the pastor seemed to be suggesting that he had the power to forgive sins. He didn’t just say once “okay anyone who would like to ask Jesus to help them, come up the front”. No, he went on and on, appealing to the spiritual, mental, and especially emotional sides of people, in the hope that they would be willing to make a symbolic gesture of joining this church. I was already a Christian - I shouldn’t have been bothered by it. The fact that his words seemed like a worm wiggling in my brain despite this, makes me realise that what he was doing there was not natural or fair or anything.

We Catholics don’t need altar calls. We’ve got the sacrament of Reconciliation for those who want to repent and get back into a state of grace. We’ve got private prayer for when someone ‘just wants to recommit themselves to God’. We’ve got RCIA for those who want to join - a careful and detailed process to reflect the importance of the decision, not something resembling one of those informercials trying to sell you a set of steak knives.

Make Altar Calls History!
Click to expand...
Thats kind of like when my Sister and brother in law(ex-Catholics) talked me in to going to their (Fundy Jack Chick Church). I had to endure, LOUD Rock “Christian” music, and then they had the Nerve to say the Catholic Church was a" ( Dead Religion). I told them, yea CC can’t compete against their 50,000 WATT AMPS !!!
 
Techno2000 said:
Thats kind of like when my Sister and brother in law(ex-Catholics) talked me in to going to their (Fundy Jack Chick Church). I had to endure, LOUD Rock “Christian” music, and then they had the Nerve to say the Catholic Church was a" ( Dead Religion). I told them, yea CC can’t compete against their 50,000 WATT AMPS !!!
Click to expand...
I am just curious Techno… why did you put christian in quotes when talking about the music?
 
I put “other” because I agree with Trelow - it is the recognition by some Protestants of the need for a public act of confession and repentance.

It also speaks to a hunger for liturgy, since an Altar Call is actually a liturgical action, where people can respond in a personal way to the Gospel, instead of just sitting quietly in the pew - it gives them an action and words with which they can respond to what’s going on in the gathering.
 
Altar calls were invented in the early 1800s as a way to get people to act on their decisions then and there. Today there are different customs from group to group. Some invite people to come forward and meet with a counselor in a separate room regarding their spiritual need, some deal with the penitents right there at the front while the music plays, some have emotional prayer meetings where the penitents are expected to touch God and get blessed if all goes well–lots of stuff has gone on down there through the decades. Some are just “Come on down and sign up, we love you” sorts of invitations. “Opening the doors of the church” they call it.

A lot of good churches do it. A lot of good ones don’t.
 
I have always interpreted an ''altar call", as an act of personal acceptance and surrender to the belief in Jesus Christ. For Catholics I have seen and experienced the totality of giving oneself completely in the act of prostrating before the altar. This is done on many levels; ordination/consecration in religious life and similar times. It is dynamic of our hearts in Him.
 
I was only ever a member of one denomination that did altar calls, and if you came foreward, it meant you wanted to be Baptised.

I have been to some other serivces where they want people to come forward to “make a profession.” After this, some churches believe that the person is going to heaven no matter what they do after that–even if they never give another thought to God. I do not believe that, and find it dangerous.

Years ago, when I was in junior high school, a revival came through and all the football players went. They all went forward at the altar call and came to school carrying Bibles and telling everyone they were “saved.” Within two weeks they had all abandoned their Bibles and gone back to their prior ways. I am not trying to judge their hearts, but after a month no one could tell by what they did that they had ever been in a church at all. I do not see how this equals salvation in the eyes of some churches.
 
I put other. I think it is a play on emotions, and althought not necessarily bad, not a great way to foster true devotion to Christ.

My former Protestant church did not do this. I have witness only a couple of alter calls as a visitor. It was really a play on your emotions. They would have a really good talk, get everybody really pumped up and then when your really feeling caught up in the moment, they’d invite you to come to the front and prove it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying everyone who goes up for an alter call is insincere or that they are not true in their love and devotion to Christ.

I was never comfortable with this and never did go up. I did not want other people to be involved in a decision that to me was very personal. I was also unsure of getting caught up in something that I wasn’t sure of. As it turned out, when I didn’t go up I stopped getting invited to that church. Makes me wonder how much of it was a numbers game.

But again, this is my personal experience and is in no way intended as a generalization. But I do think that being a true follower of Christ should be based on more than emotion. More times than not it is a hard path to tread, and when the emotional high fades there better be something more substantial to your faith than one or two emotion stirring sermons.
 
i dont mean to offend anyone by saying this, but i was one of the ppl who voted “evil.” The reason is that i honestly feel that altar calls are in a sense an attempt to create a new sacrament, as if to say “we don’t need the catholic church’s sacraments, we have made OUR OWN sacrament, the altar call.” The same could be said about the charismatic tounge speaking and being “slain in the spirit” as if to say “we wnat to transmit the spirit a different way other than the sacramaents instituted by Christ.”

also think about the “altar” which the protestants are bowing in from of, christ is not present there, heck it probally isn’t even a real altar but rather a stage or a table. For a catholic to visit a protestant church and participate in an altar call would probally constitute a mortal sin.
 
Did protestants developed the Alter Call because they were jealous of the Catholics receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and they needed an equivalent? The protestant churches I have seen don’t have an alter so how can they have an Alter Call? An alter is a table for making a sacrifice if a Protestant church did have an alter what would they sacrifice on it? :confused:
 
6glargento said:
i dont mean to offend anyone by saying this, but i was one of the ppl who voted “evil.” The reason is that i honestly feel that altar calls are in a sense an attempt to create a new sacrament, as if to say “we don’t need the catholic church’s sacraments, we have made OUR OWN sacrament, the altar call.” The same could be said about the charismatic tounge speaking and being “slain in the spirit” as if to say “we wnat to transmit the spirit a different way other than the sacramaents instituted by Christ.”

also think about the “altar” which the protestants are bowing in from of, christ is not present there, heck it probally isn’t even a real altar but rather a stage or a table. For a catholic to visit a protestant church and participate in an altar call would probally constitute a mortal sin.
Click to expand...
I think you put WAY too much on what an altar call is. Essentially it is just a way for people who feel moved to do so be able to walk to the front of the santuary and proclaim that they need something bigger than themselves because they just can’t fight God any longer. That’s it. It’s not a sacrament and it’s not required. If you don’t believe that you are being led by God to walk to the front then you can make the decision in your seat and then you still have the opportunity to seek out guidence from the church alone.

It’s like when people went to the river the hear John the Baptist speak and then came down to be baptised because they realized that he spoke the truth. It was a profession of Faith in the midst of your peers.🙂
 
Harland said:
Did protestants developed the Alter Call because they were jealous of the Catholics receiving Jesus in the Eucharist and they needed an equivalent? The protestant churches I have seen don’t have an alter so how can they have an Alter Call? An alter is a table for making a sacrifice if a Protestant church did have an alter what would they sacrifice on it? :confused:
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t be surprised if the altar call was developed because there is such a thirst for God out there and so many people are moved to ask for Him. Please see above for my explanation of what an altar call is. Maybe that would help…🙂
 
at Steubenville Summer Youth and Young Adult conferences they have their own version of the “altar call”. In the conclusion of a praise and worship session they invite all those young men and women discerning vocations to priesthood and religious life to come forward so that the assembly can pray for them. It is the climax and reward for the whole conference, to see 200 or more come forward, and know the future of our Church is in such hands.
 
6glargento and others, perhaps this will help.

I grew up in a Conference Baptist church. We didn’t use the word “altar call.” In our denomination, it was called “the invitation.”

I never heard the term “altar call” until I came into contact with the Assemblies of God church in our city.

I’m not sure why Conference Baptists used “invitation” instead of “altar call.” It’s possible that the founders of the denomination agree with you, that Protestant churches don’t have real “altars.” I don’t know.

The idea behind the invitation was to make a **public **profession of faith. The verse often quoted was Matthew 10:32 “Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.”

Our invitation was quite open. Of course people were invited to come forward and accept Christ as Savior. But people were also encouraged to come forward to request water baptism, to re-dedicate their lives to Christ, to ask for prayer, to seek assurance of salvation,

When you think about it, Catholics always “go forward” to make a public profession for all of these milestones. The catechumens and candidates go forward for the Scrutinies. They go forward to meet the bishop as the “elect.” They go forward to be baptized and confirmed. (Babies also are brought forward to the front of the Church for baptism.) Of course, we go forward for Communion. We stand up to recite the Nicene Creed. Priests and deacons go forward to be ordained. And of course, we are brought forward during our funeral mass.

And even though our confessions (reconciliation) are private, we stand in a line, usually with lots of other people, while we wait to make our confession. And when we come out of the confessional, everyone sees us kneel to do our penance. (Of course, we can make private appointments with a priest, too.)

The Catholic Church is filled with examples of “public professions” of faith. Although Catholics are encouraged to make private devotions, many of our decisions for Christ are done in a public setting, often by our going forward in front of everyone else in the Church. Often, we end up with oil on our foreheads, so we can’t disguise the fact that we “went forward.”

Catholicism is a very PUBLIC faith.

So I honestly believe that the altar call or “invitation” is one of the most CATHOLIC things about a Protestant service, and that we should rejoice that the Protestant churches are still hanging onto something that is very Catholic!
 
Cat, after reading your post I wonder how anyone could settle for so much less than what we have.
 
Cat said:
So I honestly believe that the altar call or “invitation” is one of the most CATHOLIC things about a Protestant service, and that we should rejoice that the Protestant churches are still hanging onto something that is very Catholic!
Click to expand...
I agree. This was my feelings as well when I was going through confirmation and immediately felt the similarity.

Those that think it is “evil” need to get over feeling that everything that protestants do is bad.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top