Despite the many denominations, many church services have the same or similar overall elements and order of operations. One feature that many services include is an altar call – an opportunity for people to go to God in prayer while still meditating on the message from the service or responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. They come to the front of the church and pray at a space designated as the altar. This moment ensures that people are given an opportunity to come to Christ in prayer as soon as they believe.
Not all churches believe that altar calls are necessary. Some even believe they can be problematic, and choose not to do them. While the Bible does not explicitly affirm something that resembles an altar call as part of a service for those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, it does provide an opportunity for people to respond to the Gospel or the Holy Spirit.
When used improperly, it can be a form of peer pressure that leads to false testimonies and conversions; used correctly, it is a healthy time for corporate and private prayer and reflection.
An altar call is a time of prayer and response after a sermon. They are sometimes called invitations, since it is a time when people in the congregation are invited to respond to the sermon at the altar of God.
Generally, it is an opportunity to respond to the Gospel and be saved, though it can also be to repent of sin, to ask for help or healing, or to seek wisdom in a difficult situation. Some churches only do them at revivals, while others do them every week. They became popular in the United States during the First Great Awakening, when preachers encouraged an immediate response to the Gospel at their revival sermons.
An altar call can look different, but generally it is a time after the sermon for people to come up to the space designated as the altar at the front of the sanctuary, and they can pray or speak to the pastor, a deacon, or an elder about something for which they want guidance. Generally, though not universally, the pastor will invite people to close their eyes in prayer, and invite anyone to come forward to the “altar” and pray. Often there is music going, a signal to those who did not come to the altar that prayer up front is still happening, and it usually ends when everyone has returned to their seat. Sometimes deacons, elders, or select members of the congregation will stand up front and pray with people, or go into another room to pray with them and give Biblical counsel.
The practice has been common since the 18th century in the United States, but the term altar call was not commonly used until the Holiness and Pentecostal movements started in the 20th century.
There is no place in the Bible that describes anything resembling an altar call practiced in the New Testament. In fact, much of the structure of a modern church service is not explicitly lined out by the Gospels, the Epistles, or the Book of Revelation. Instead, it is extrapolated from existing practices in the Jewish temple - giving a monetary donation, worship, a time of teaching from the Scriptures - and descriptions in the Book of Acts of what the early believers did. These practices included the similar rituals as listed above, but also included the taking of Communion as ordained by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper.
Proponents of the altar call point to a couple concepts in the Gospel. One argument is that becoming a Christian and responding to a presentation of the Gospel to start a relationship with Jesus is becoming a part of His church, which is compared to a wedding in the Bible.
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:22-23).
In Revelation, it records there will be an event called the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, “And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’” (Revelation 19:9). In a traditional Christian wedding, the bride is presented to the groom at the altar of the church, so early proponents, including George Whitfield, argued someone should respond to the Gospel by coming to the altar to wed themselves to the Lord.
The verse most commonly used to justify this idea was, “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called” (Isaiah 54:5). While this verse can be applied in a metaphorical sense to the church, it was directed at the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people. Using it as a justification for altar calls is taking the verse out of context, and is assuming the church inherits the same promises, responsibilities, and covenants as Israel.
At the Marriage Supper of the Lamb believers from the time before and after Jesus’ earthly ministry will be assembled, and that will be the actual moment of “marriage,” so responding to an altar call today is not necessary to be part of the Bride of Christ. Only faith in Jesus Christ is required.
Some of the pros of an altar call include:
- It gives someone an immediate opportunity to deal with sin.
- It provides a regular opportunity for unrepentant sinners to go to God in prayer and start a saving relationship with Him.
- It can be a time of reflection.
- It gives people an opportunity to think about the sermon.
- It serves as a reminder that the Gospel demands a response; it is impossible to do nothing.
Some of the cons of an altar call include:
- It can provide a false sense of how many people are getting saved at church
-People can feel peer-pressured to go to the altar, rather than responding to the Holy Spirit
- It can lead someone to put their faith in the action of the altar call for their faith, rather than in Jesus Christ. Just like some people believe that the Sinner’s Prayer is what saves them rather than Jesus, some people become deceived because they walked the aisle, and do not bear fruit in their lives.
- Sometimes they’re used by pastors to pressure people into responding; one or two people come, so the pastor makes the music keep going and encourages people to come.
- Some evangelists present the altar call as the only appropriate way to come to the Lord.
- In massive revivals and certain mega-churches, there are actors planted to make altar calls look big, pressuring people to come forward.
- It can create an insecurity in believers, who fear their conversion was false because it didn’t “feel” or “look” a certain way.
There is nothing wrong with churches providing an opportunity for people to respond to the gospel immediately, or to go to God in prayer with concerns, but it needs to be done with integrity, and should never be seen as the avenue or mechanism for salvation. Pressuring individuals to come forward because everyone else is, or deceiving them into thinking this action provides salvation, is not Biblical and should be discouraged. God meets people where they are at, which can be at the altar, in their seat, in the car, in their bed, or anywhere. Altar calls should be used wisely, and with the consent of a plurality of the church.
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:13-15).
Sources
Balbier, Uta. Altar Call in Europe Billy Graham, Mass Evangelism, and the Cold-War West. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Kidd, Thomas. The Great Awakening The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Schaper, Donna. Altar Call Inviting Response to the Gospel. Cokesbury: Abingdon Press, 2001.
Photo credit: Unsplash/benwhitephotography
Bethany Verrett is a freelance writer who uses her passion for God, reading, and writing to glorify God. She and her husband have lived all over the country serving their Lord and Savior in ministry. She has a blog on graceandgrowing.com.