Don Johnson "on invitations"

I think the ‘altar call’ and an ‘invitation’ are very, VERY different, especially in terms of connotation. An altar call is a very specific request - come down to the front of the church NOW in order to respond to the Gospel.
The examples of Philip, Nathaniel, and Paul aren’t invitations to salvation. And IMO the example of “compelling folks to come in” is also not applicable to this topic.
There are many situations where God required a variety of acts of obedience and faith, but we are in a sticky wicket when we begin to invent prescriptions of how to respond to the Gospel message.
We are often cursed with knowledge and can’t fathom what something looks like to a person of a different faith or non-religious background. Even the most innocuous altar call carries a certain amount of implied baggage. I think it is dangerous to create links between the physical act of walking to the front of the church with obedience to God or faith in Jesus Christ. Baptism is a clear, doctrinally acceptable example of a public profession (unless it’s just you and an Ethiopian eunuch out by the beach).

I remember hating invitations in my early days in Christ, and after going to a church that did not, by and large, have that kind of invitation, I figured out why. In many churches, the pastor will more or less be preaching moral living or even the pastor’s personal and cultural preferences for 45 minutes, and then will say, in effect, “And now for something completely different”, and launch into a 30 second Gospel message, after which the congregation is supposed to be all fired up to respond to what the pastor has, apart from emotional manipulation, completely failed to do.

As others have noted, it’s an ill fruit of revivalism gone amuck.

I am reluctant to throw out the invitation/altar call/what-have-you completely. There is room for making opportunity for some kind of response possible. I plan to write more on this, probably won’t get it up until next week.

I am extremely uncomfortable with blanket criticism of revivalism as such. In fact there would be no fundamentalism or evangelicalism either, for that matter, if there had been no revivalism. The Lord has used the revivalists in a mighty way and their efforts should not be simply dismissed out of hand now that we have grown too sophisticated to tolerate them. I have a lot of time for a good deal of what is dismissed as revivalism. We could use a good deal more of it.

But I am against the phony psychological manipulation that passes for invitations/altar calls and the phony results they produce.

I acknowledge that the history of revivalism has not been spotless, but I won’t dismiss it out of hand.

[Don Johnson]

I am reluctant to throw out the invitation/altar call/what-have-you completely. There is room for making opportunity for some kind of response possible.

What is your basis for calling for someone in the congregation to respond to the pastor when dealing with God? This smacks of Roman Catholic confessionalism, where the sinner presents himself to the representative of God as part of his absolution. A challenge at the end of the sermon to heed and respond to the truth is appropriate, but I just don’t see any reason for church leaders to call for people to present themselves to the man in the pulpit - whether by coming down to the front or even by raising hands to indicate some business was done with God.

[Chip Van Emmerik]

What is your basis for calling for someone in the congregation to respond to the pastor when dealing with God? This smacks of Roman Catholic confessionalism, where the sinner presents himself to the representative of God as part of his absolution. A challenge at the end of the sermon to heed and respond to the truth is appropriate, but I just don’t see any reason for church leaders to call for people to present themselves to the man in the pulpit - whether by coming down to the front or even by raising hands to indicate some business was done with God.

Hmmmmmmmm. Saul/Paul in Acts 9 was dealing person-to-person with the risen Jesus Christ who instructed him, in response to the oft asked question “what would you have me to do” to go to Ananias to have his question answered/applied—“…Arise, be baptized, wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord…(Act 22:16).”

Cornelius (Acts 10-11) had an angel speak with him to let him know that his prayers had come before God as a “memorial”, but when he asked the question tantamount to “what would you have me do” he was specifically sent to find Peter who would “speak words to you by which you will be saved…(Acts 11:14).”

I got no issue with sending/inviting someone with whom God is dealing to go/come find someone to “speak words…by which you will be saved.” There is Scripture precedent for it. In fact it seems to be the preferred method in the great trilogy of Acts 8-10 where the Gospel goes to every people group.