Please, only members who have experienced alter calls respond.

How do alter calls usually go at your church?

I know my pastor usually spends a couple of minutes asking if anyone would like be baptized in the church or renew their faith, etc. and then we sing the final hymn and people are welcome to walk up to the front during this time.....at the end of the hymn if no one is up front the pastor asks a member (usually a Deacon) to dismiss us in a final prayer and then everyone is on their merry way.

But, I've been to some churches that have alter calls that are longer than the actual sermon!!  I mean I was standing up singing 5 or 6 songs waitin on the pastor to "give it a rest" so to speak.

How do you all feel about alter calls?


ETA: This is my first post in the religious forum.....and it looks like VA-gunnut is doing an outstanding job!

Altar calls in my church are usually given after the sermon is over, and are given for various purposes in addition to salvation and the like.

Every pastor does the altar call a little differently.

Yeah I guess so, but I really don't understand an hour long alter call......

I mean, if someone feels the need/urge/whatever to go up, then surely they can do it within some reasonable amount of time.

I know when I decided to get baptized it was something I had thought out long before church that morning.

I don't want to sound like, "Hey, let's get goin' I'm missin' the game!" but surely one can't be expected to have an alter call last all day!  I know when the feelin' hits you it just hits you sometimes, but I guess there's something inside me that prevents me from understanding "unnecessarily long" alter calls.

Catholics have no such thing.


Sgat1r5

That's pretty much how we do it.

Catholics have no such thing. Sgat1r5

Yep, you guys don't need to - you all are born saved  Just playing just playing

Quoted: That's pretty much how we do it. Catholics have no such thing. Sgat1r5 Yep, you guys don't need to - you all are born saved  Just playing just playing

Well, we are the choosen ones  But seriously, we are not born saved.  WE get baptisted and confirmed still ofcourse.  But baptism is normally as a child.  When an adult gets baptized they first have to go to a couple of classes.


Sgat1r5

One thing I REALLY like about the Catholic faith is your consideration of marriage.  I wish all protestant demoninations could follow suit.  This nation needs a better idea of what marriage is supposed to be like.

My wife's parents recently went through their marriage renoucement/anullment(?) as required by the Catholic church for remarriage after having been divorced for a number of years.  I was quite pleased that hte church required so much of them to do it.  I wish it could be even harder, to deter those getting married for the wrong reasons, or divorced for the wrong reasons.

Yes marriage is considered a Holy Sacrament in the Catholic Church.  We become one unit with God.  Divorce is easy, annulment are hard but possible if there is a GOOD reason.

Growing apart is not considered a good reason either.

Sgat1r5

Ok.........

No for Lutherans, but been a long time and No for Jews

We believe that altar calls are a bad idea.

They promote a false sense of security, by giving someone a faith in their response to an altar call years ago, instead of faith in Jesus Christ alone.  People are always content to look to something else, particularly some action they have taken, instead of goin straight to Jesus and having direct dealings with Him.

Secondly, there is nothing magic about coming to the front of the church.  If God the Holy Spirit is having dealings with a person in their chair, then that is exactly the place/time that they need to seek forgiveness and have dealings with Christ.  They should not wait for the end of the service and an altar call.

Third, it can promote a damning sense of pride.  Self-explanatory.  "The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it?"

There are many, many people who are very happy to give someone counsel about their response to a sermon.  If they would like counsel, they don't need an altar call to get help.

We dont do them. There is no need. Its a way for the pastor to feel good about himself and is really for his reassurance that his preaching was effective. Finney started this and the gospel was working fine before him with no altar calls.

Many many people this  it was the altar call that saved them and many are taught that they can live any way they please as long as they made an altar call or were baptized. Some actually think that one has to do an altar call to be saved. Malarky. Its to make the pastor feel good and for friends who were dragged in by their friends go up to make them feel better or to get them to stop pushing them. Ok not all folks at altar calls are like that but when I went to a seeker sensitive dispensationalist church, they had about 50 every altar call go up. A friend went up but he is still pretty much a new ager /agnostic. He wanted his GF to lay off the preaching and it worked, becuase he did an Altar call, she thinks he is saved.

Nowhere is it recorded of any apostles giving an altar call. Preach the gospel and trust the Lord to work His Will in the recipients ears is all that is required. If the Spitit is at work in thier life, they will make the decision. And they do not need to do a altar call before man.

+1 to C_M and Wildboar.

Well said, gentlemen.

Nothing to add, beyond what y'all said.

Grew up in the United Church of Christ, then after moving, Presbyterian and Methodist churces......don't remember any of them doing an "alter call".

Interesting concept, but I think I agree with WildBoar

I agree that alter calls aren't really necessary......I think that's why my preacher doesn't spend much time on it.....Like ya'll said....if you get the call you get the call....it can be anywhere anytime.

Some info on altar calls here.

Completely unscriptural. In fact, most modern worship ritual is totally unbiblical and unscriptural.

I've been in pentecostal churches where the alter call was the emotional climax to the service that everyone anxiously awaited. The music was carefully selected to move everyone's emotions towards a state in which the sermon could then be further utilized to whip people into an emotional frenzy. Then they would cut loose at the alter call and carry on an a fleshly ignorance for sometimes 1-2 hours.

None of it was edifying to God. It was an ignorant, fleshly emotional release.