Altar Call

Altar Call By: Rev. Lynwood F. Mundy This was written in response to an article 10 Reasons Not to Give an Altar Call at SermonCentral.com on June 7, 2011. There were many responders to this article giving their individual thoughts in the positive and negative. All responders respected the writer of the article Thabiti Anyabwile. Thabiti Anyabwile is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman in the Grand Cayman Islands and a Council member with The Gospel Coalition. I request that you read Pastor Anyabwile’s entire article and draw on your own conclusion(s). You may send your comments to me at the blog address and I will reply to all of them if you agree or not agree with me. Here is my response to the article 10 reasons Not to Give An Altar Call: Altar Calls I feel can be very dangerous in misleading the congregation in to believing what has been preached, taught and sung about is not all true. By that I mean, the minister has been preaching about individual faith and prayer for [one]self and others, but then have an Altar Call which misleads some people in to believing that the minister holds the key, or putting faith in him [or herself] and not in oneself in God. Altar Call can also make one that is secular believe that if they come to an Altar Call, they can either confess their sins and leave as was when they came in to the service, or give them a guilt trip in to joining the church without really searching their soul, thus, actually coming to Jesus through faith, earnest repentance and accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Faith and prayer in knowing that you have been born again is in itself an indwelling Holy Spirit Altar Call for ones self and praying for others as well. Conclusion To this article, preacher’s, lay-persons and Biblical students as well as seminary and theology students will find this subject very augmented as one can well see. In the end most will quote James 5:16 “16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” One can add to the augmented of this controversial title after reading James 5:16, is Altar Call really a tradition of worship, or placing some doubt in a persons own prayer-life with doubt of their faith in knowing God will answer their prayer? You be the judge. © MMXI Daily, Weekend and Holiday Internet to the World Ministry