Featured Question for Pastors

I tend to stand with Paul Washer on this:

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVjqklGXpJk

 

I like the invitation the Old Regular Baptists used to give. Best I remember it was something like this: The doors of the Church are open to anyone who has had an experience of Grace. Hopefully if I am wrong some Brother or Sister will correct me!

 

Usually the invitation is extended for the unsaved. My parents (RCC) told me I had a work of grace when I was baptized (as an infant). I think the unsaved would find such an invitation rather confusing.

 

That's pretty much nails it.

"anyone of like mind and kindred spirit wishing to express a desire to join our group"

 

The way I say it is like this; if you have been praying on the account of your sins, and believe God has saved you, as we sing, come and give us your hand, and we will take you and lay you in your liquid grave in baptism. We then give them an opportunity to make their statement of grace and what He did for them(confession of faith, iow).

 

We don't look for a public profession of faith (as anyone can claim that so they're guaranteed heaven by some preacher) as much as we look for a public demonstration of repentance and regenerative grace.

 

Yeah, I don't like that term altar for a church myself. And by all means, put a smiley on there! :laugh:

 

In my area the free willers will either jester toward the altar in a invitation and say, come to Christ and be saved or come to the altar and be saved. So they make a piece of wood, Christ.

 

Yes...:thumbs:

 

Then what...aabracaadabra? :tear:

 

Jesus called His disciples and expected an immediate response from them, a "standing with Him" as indicative of an outward, visible sign of their choice to follow Him. Obviously, Judas response was false, and we don't even read in the Bible of his being called.

When Peter preached in Jerusalem on Pentecost, he ended his sermon with what was essentially an altar call.

Acts 2, (NASB)
40 And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse generation!"
41 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.​

When Peter preached his second sermon at the Temple courts after healing the lame beggar, he again offered what was essentially an altar call.

Acts 3
19 "Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;
20 and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you,
21 whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time."

Acts 4
4 But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.​

When Paul was in Athens, he began his sermon by speaking of the Greeks' altar to "The Unknown God," and ended it by calling for belief and repentance.

Acts 17
30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, "We shall hear you again concerning this."
33 So Paul went out of their midst.
34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.​

The altar call is every bit as valid today as it was 2,000 years ago. You who reject it have no excuse for your opinion. Just as with Judas, it will be ineffective for some. But for others, it will be the beginning of new life. Your opinion is without biblical support.

 

TND,nothing in your entire post supports an "altar call" --not even a mention in all the Scriptures you quoted. Actually an "altar call" has Roman Catholic undertones.

 

Your refusal to allow the use of the phrase as a shorthand reference for pleading the cause of Christ before sinners is unfortunate. Your adherence to a perverted form of biblical truth prevents you from seeing the way God works. Too bad.

 

http://ezinearticles.com/?DL-Moody,-Preach-the-Gospel-of-Salvation&id=340189

Moody never ended without an altar call/invitation after that. He had come to realize too much was at stake. The eternal destiny of souls is far more important than a squabble over "should one or shouldn't one give an invitation."

 

just make sure that the church also is bog on follow up and getting converts disciplined, as belive that the Billy Graham ministry reports that officially 88-90% of those coming forward after a year have either refused going to church, or even claiming to now being saved!

 

I don't support Billy Graham's methods. For starters he will send the person back to his own church even if he be a Roman Catholic.
He uses psychology. During a large crusade he has all of his workers rise at the invitation and come forward. Then it is not so bad when they see so many others go forward they may just want to be "part of the group" and go forward just because "everyone else is doing it."

 

Billy did seem to "mellow" over the years, for if you watched him say in 1940's/50"s. he seemed much more s trickler for what was a real church!