![]() ( 2) This conviction was not an excuse for cold, heartless preaching or the basis for a lack of passion for lost souls. For the confessional opponents of the altar calls, the preacher is a proclaimer of good news who humbly expects God to call effectually the listener to true faith. Pressured by the numerical success of the itinerants and/or by church members who sincerely desired a work of the Holy Spirit in the congregation, these men adopted what came to be called the "new measures" of the itinerant evangelist.įor the Arminian Finney, as for other proponents of the altar call, the preacher is a persuader who must employ whatever means are necessary to win the lost for Christ. In addition to resident pastors inviting itinerant evangelists to their pulpits, though, many resident pastors themselves also began to conclude their sermons with altar calls. The apparent success of this technique led to its adoption by nearly every itinerant evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, including the infamous Charles Finney. Awakened sinners were invited to come to the "anxious bench" (the front pew or row of chairs) to receive specific instruction toward repentance and faith, while the remainder of the congregation tarried in prayer specifically for the mourners. Some years later Methodists organized camp meetings with an "anxious or mourner's bench" replacing the altar. Occasionally the preacher called awakened sinners to the front of the sanctuary, that is, to the altar. ( 1) In the Anglican architectural tradition, the area before the communion table, at the front of the sanctuary, was called the altar. ![]() The earliest record of the altar call is found in the late eighteenth century among congregations of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The typical altar call is an invitation by a preacher to believe in Jesus and to confirm that decision by "coming forward" to a predetermined location as a visible manifestation of the invisible decision, and for further instruction and prayer. It employs an external activity to confirm an internal impulse. ![]() The "altar call" is a decisionist technique designed to lead an individual to a new level of commitment to Jesus Christ.
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