So Julie and I are in Maine. It is good times. Lots of misquitoes. I mean swarms, I would welcome the chicken pocks rather than this opening of the fifth seal of the apocalypse. THe ocean is cold, there are supposed to be moose here. I am anxious to see one. We cooked up some fresh lobster, which was mighty fine and are having some good R & R, I am hoping to get some time to get some good updates on my blog which has fallen stagnate of late. My apologies.
Starting today with the question of how long is a good alter call? We were at a meeting last weekend where the alter call not only last one hour and fifteen minutes, but also included every prayer chorus in the book bringing even the most stubborn alter-goer-downer down with several repeats of "all that I am."
though I do love that song, I wonder how useful it was for me to sit in the audience and feel obligated to watch as people made tearful recommitments, I meant with heads bowed and eyes closed. I maybe just super cynical, and need to go the alter myself. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, don't fret it is no - big deal, just a rant. I will probably be putting more thought into this, later.
The Secret We Can't Talk About
12 years ago
2 comments:
Sean,
I sometimes wonder about the samething. But then I wonder about me making a judgement call on whether the last person is going up because of guilt or if the Holy Spirit has truly moved in their lives.
You and me both have made commitments at the altar at some time or another where we kinda guilted up there. But also we have also made sincere commitments there.
I would never want to make that call about the last person.\
(Not really sure, hopefully makes sense. Mostly goes down to the motive of the person leading the altar call)
I think we often allow things in the Christian experience because they might win one or two people over, and if they do, then who are we to stop them?
The fact is, we forget that it is not the hour long altar call that gets someone to recommit to Christ, it is God, and only God. When we start allowing disingenious pracitces in our worship because it might win one or two people to Christ, we start thinking that we are responsible for the salvation of others.
I personally think hour long altar calls are more a sign of a stubborn pastor than they are a sign of a true desire to see people come to Christ. After-all, Christ told us to bring the world to him by serving it, not by singing or yelling at it for an hour.
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