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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve been in the conservative evangelical\/fundamentalist world for any length of time, you\u2019ve experienced a variety of invitations in the services you have attended. In some services, the preacher seems to connect with heaven and send a message direct from God to your sinful heart and you bow in confession and respond as the preacher calls for repentance at the end of the service. Some services in particular speak directly to the heart of the lost and are used by God to bring about numerous conversions in response. On other occasions, the preacher may not have seemed so connected with the divine, yet an invitation is given anyhow \u2013 and a response ensues, often in large numbers, but it somehow seems to lack the intense spirituality of those other occasions. It seems\u2026 routine\u2026 manufactured\u2026 indefinite\u2026 inconclusive\u2026 and rarely produces change that lasts.<\/p>\n
What is the difference?<\/p>\n
Before I explain what I think the difference is, let me make some positive remarks about invitations. I am not against invitations. I think the Lord invited people to respond to his preaching, who are we to refrain? (Mt 11.28-30; Mk 8.34-38; Jn 7.37-38) I think that specific invitations to clear gospel messages are entirely legitimate. If a message is preached on the gift of grace in salvation, the convicting power of the Spirit is accompanying the preaching of sin, judgement and righteousness, then by all means call sinners to respond in faith. Call them to believe, call them to repent, call them to surrender. If a message on the call of God to Christian service is preached, call on the hearers to respond. There is nothing at all wrong with an invitation that is specific and to urge a spiritual response to a spiritual invitation.<\/p>\n
But that is just it \u2013 so many invitations are vague, unclear, manipulative, dependent on the crowd management of the evangelist, psychologically damaging and entirely unscriptural. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Not long ago, I sat in a service where the speaker was passionate about something. I am not sure exactly what it was, it certainly wasn\u2019t found in his text. But he did make it clear that times were bad and we need people to do something. At the end of the service, the invitation went along these lines: \u201cIf you know that you need to be more committed to the Lord and stand for him, raise your hand.\u201d Apparently a lot of hands were raised. Next the preacher said (after a bit more exhorting), \u201cAll of you who raised your hands, would you stand up and show you are committed to doing something for the Lord.\u201d Well, a lot of those folks stood up. I don\u2019t know if they all did, but many did. Next (you knew it was coming, didn\u2019t you?) he said, \u201cNow I want all of you standing to come forward and tell the Lord you mean business.\u201d \u2026 Or\u2026 words to that effect. [Please note: I am paraphrasing the statements, they are close to what was said, but not exact quotes.]<\/p>\n
What do you think of that? Was anything really accomplished for the Lord? Well\u2026 maybe, who am I to judge? Which is the sophistry behind which manipulators hide. Sometimes serious spiritual decisions are made in such services.<\/p>\n
But is it possible that spiritual harm is done by this kind of invitation?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it, this kind of invitation is very manipulative. It depends on psychological methods to get people to move. First is the vague question that those who are halfway spiritual feel ashamed not to raise their hands. Next is the call to stand. What are you supposed to do? You just raised your hand. Was it a lie? \u201cWell, no, I mean to serve the Lord, so, OK, I\u2019ll stand. Standing is ok, this service will soon be over, won\u2019t it?\u201d So the spiritual guy who is being manipulated stands. Next comes the call to move, to come forward. What are you going to do? You can\u2019t just stay standing while all those other guys go forward, can you? You could sit down, but everyone still seated beside you will know. What to do? You go forward.<\/p>\n
And there you have it. The preacher has seen a \u201cgreat moving of God\u201d in his service and congratulates himself on a job well done.<\/p>\n
Is it?<\/p>\n
One of the problems we have had in our ministry is when we have special services with special music. On occasion we\u2019ve had a fair number of visitors who have no real church background of any kind. I find that I often have to teach them not to applaud<\/i> after the special music in these services. (I realize applause is an evangelical staple these days, but that\u2019s another story\u2026) What is wrong with applause? Applause is a group activity. It is highly psychological. One person starts clapping, it\u2019s a call to everyone else to clap as well. It is not the same thing as an individual \u201cAmen\u201d coming from a sincerely moved heart (although that is also abused). It demands that all agree with me in giving attention to the performance or the performer. In our services, we are after praise for the Lord, an individual thing, a sincerely spiritual thing, not a group thing.<\/p>\n
In the same way, these kinds of invitations depend on crowd psychology in order to manipulate responses. Is the response truly spiritual? Maybe in one or two cases. In all? Who can say? I suspect not.<\/p>\n
What is wrong with giving an invitation like this: \u201cIf you understand tonight that you are a sinner and you can\u2019t save yourself, would you respond in faith to the work of Christ on your behalf?\u201d Or, \u201cIf you realize tonight that you have failed the Lord in [specific subject of sermon], would you bow your head and confess your sin to the Lord right now?\u201d Or, \u201cIf you are willing to give your life to missionary service [or some other spiritual endeavor], would you raise your hand?\u201d (Don\u2019t make them stand!) You can give an altar call after specific invitations, I don\u2019t have a problem with that. But must you? Will marching down to the altar really make that significant difference that some say it will? What we are really after are spiritual responses to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Let\u2019s avoid manipulating a response and let folks make spiritual decisions without the public psychological display.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve been in the conservative evangelical\/fundamentalist world for any length of time, you\u2019ve experienced a variety of invitations in the services you have attended. In some services, the preacher seems to connect with heaven and send a message direct from God to your sinful heart and you bow in confession and respond as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[41,88],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2fYWj-zw","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2202"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2204,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions\/2204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oxgoad.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}