ALTAR CALL: Part 3

We do have an evangelism philosophy. We call it “seed sowing” and “harvesting.” During the year, we have seed sowing events for the community (chilli fiesta, Stonemill 5k, etc, etc). These are designed to serve the community with the love of Christ, no strings attached.

We also have harvesting events where we have an evangelistic presentation and a call for a response (I do this on Sunday mornings about twice a year, also VBS, Youth, and our other ministries in the church offer these).

So, if anyone stays around the church for a while, they will hear the gospel and receive an invitation to respond. The last time I did an altar call, it wasn’t as effective as simply boldly preaching the Word and leaving the drawing up to the Lord.

We do have a place on our communication cards where people can mark that they want to talk about knowing God, which we follow up on individually.

We want to be effective in this area. Altar calls are rarely, if ever, found in the Bible. I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

But there is a lot of evangelism that happens through individuals leading others to the Lord and simply as a natural overflow of great discipleship (check out Acts 2:42-47). The early church gave great spiritual meals of strong biblical teaching and v. 47 says that they gained the favor of the lost in their region and “the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” The Lord was the one who saved folks through an ongoing exposure of the Word and worship.

Throughout history, that adding of the lost to the church took the form of altar calls, camp meetings, raising of hands, door to door invitations, small group discussions, promise keeper events, etc, etc.

We’re trying to find the most effective means of evangelism for our community today. We’re still searching and experimenting. Who knows, maybe altar calls will make a come back in our region. I’d love to see them effective again like they were in the earlier half of the last century (God changed the nation through them). That would be great because they’re measurable, public, and encouraging. But this method hasn’t worked as well as other methods have for us in this region.

Please keep praying for us. For now we will continue to have elders available each Sunday after our services to give spiritual counsel and prayer to those seeking.