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Walk the Aisle | Christian History

Story Behind
Walk the Aisle
Popularized by frontier camp meetings and Charles Finney’s “anxious bench,” the altar call became an evangelistic staple of American churches.
Douglas A. Sweeney and Mark C. Rogers

Walk the Aisle

The pastor closes his sermon: “The Holy Spirit bids you come. The congregation, praying, hoping, expectant, bids you come. On the first note of the first stanza, come down one of these stairways, down one of these aisles. May angels attend you. May the Holy Spirit of God encourage you. May the presence of Jesus walk by your side as you come, while we stand and while we sing.” And come they do. Week after week, in churches all across the America—and other parts of the world—scenes like this play out at the end of thousands of sermons. The congregation stands and sings “Just As I Am” or “Come Just as You Are.” Sinners walk the aisle and pray for salvation.

This common evangelistic method, known as the altar call or the public invitation, has not always been around. Successful evangelists such as George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and John Wesley never gave an altar call. In fact, they did not even know what it was. They invited their hearers passionately to come to Christ by faith and regularly counseled anxious sinners after their services. But they did not call sinners to make a public, physical response after evangelistic appeals. So where did the altar call come from? When did it begin?

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I use my Libronix almost everyday if not several times during the day. It is simply amazing.

Here is the link for the sermon file add-on and the discount code.

Link

An excellent summary of a more disturbing trend over at www.christianitytoday.com

It has not been that long ago since the online editor was praising her nightly ritual of watching sitcoms and going to bed with Jay and Dave in her editorial section at the start of the weekly Christianity Today updates. I wrote a nice email asking if she was serious or just being hyperbolous for effect. I am still waiting on a reply.

Click below and see the excellent synopsis.

Sex and the CT « The Shepherd’s Scrapbook

Sex and the CT

Here’s an update on the Sex and the City and Christianity Today movie review ordeal…

Sex and the City was an HBO television series (1998-2004) that won 7 Emmy Awards.

The SATC movie (rated R) was released on May 30 with more of the same, what the Chicago Tribune labels “outré fashion, casual sex and dubious cocktails” and “plenty of eye candy for the ladies (think naked men and haute couture).” Not your typical Christian movie.

However, Christianity Today’s Camerin Courtney wrote a fairly explicit and positive review, giving SATC 3 stars (CT gave Prince Caspian 2.5 stars).

People criticized CT for positively reviewing a “pornographic movie.”

Carolyn McCulley (a CT contributor herself) writes an exceptional response to the CT review: “the pot with the proverbial frog has boiled over. The changes that have come about with the introduction of ’sex positive’ or ‘porn positive’ third-wave feminism, beginning in the early 1990s, have now so thoroughly permeated our culture that even evangelicals fail to see the trend or the danger.”

CT responded to the swarm of criticism by defending the original review.

Then yesterday Ted Slater of Boundless called CT to *repent* over the review (and the defense of the review) in an article simply titled “Christianity Today Relishes Sexual Perversion.”

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“Them’s fighting words!” …Seven sentences that should make every Christian cringe

Greg Stier
Dare2Share

How many times have you been in your church’s foyer when a member of your congregation said something so unbiblical that you literally cringed? Or maybe it was in a Sunday school class when that one person (you know who I’m talking about) raises his/her hand and waxes eloquent in an assertion that is so jacked-up theologically that you don’t even know how to begin to respond.  

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

An Evangelical Response to “An Evangelical Manifesto”

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 6:35 am ET

Who are the Evangelicals? The issue of Evangelical identity and definition has been central to the Evangelical project from its very beginning in America. Given the nature of the movement, definition is elusive and constantly contested.

The release of “An Evangelical Manifesto” on May 7 caught the attention of the national media, and thus it represents yet another opportunity for evangelical definition. The document, released May 7, also represents a challenge, for its framers hope to redefine the movement in the context of our unsettled times.

The Manifesto, released at a press conference at the National Press Club, represents an agenda. The press release offered by the organizers makes that clear:

I am uncertain about some of this article, but a lot of is is just gold.

Contemplating Cool – 9Marks

Contemplating Cool
By Mike McKinley

Show me a grown man with a goatee and I’ll show you a major league baseball player. Show me a grown man with a goatee wearing sandals and I’ll show you a youth pastor.

When I was a kid, I remember that the youth pastor at our church was totally different than any other pastor I’d ever seen. He quoted rock bands and wore blue jeans to church. He was cool in a way that the other adults in my life were not. I was proud to invite my friends to church and see their negative stereotypes of Christians get blown up. The youth group thrived and “unchurched” kids were reached. The one thing that distinguished our group from others was that our pastor was cool.

As the youth pastors and youth of the 1990s become the head pastors and congregants of the 2000s, it seems like the phenomenon has only grown. It is now an unexamined assumption in many quarters: the best way to reach people is to be like them. In order to reach our culture, we must embody what the culture defines as acceptable and valuable. We must be as “cool” as we can possibly be while still retaining the gospel. That way, people will see us and not be turned off by us. Maybe they’ll even want to be us.

This shows up in both the private lives of pastors (you missional guys, I’m talking about you and your emo eyeglasses) and in the church’s corporate worship, where we seek to remove everything that might seem foreign to the unchurched visitor.

In some ways, I think being connected to the culture around us is helpful. But there are ways in which a commitment to being cool can ultimately conflict with the call of a pastor. As the resident cool guy on the 9Marks docket (which is roughly like being the ladies’ man at a Star Trek convention—damning with faint praise), here are a few thoughts:

Who are the influential leaders in American Christianity?

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/004/7.42.html — The Zoloft Dispensation

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001629.cfm -  How Should We Then Work?

Resisting Unhealthy Adoration from Those We Lead

http://preachingtoday.com/16666 – The Danger of Practical Preaching: Why people need more than the bottom line.

 Confessions of a Megachurch Pastor: Extended 

What Evangelism Isn’t

LESSONS FROM THE RICHEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED

Tags: america pastor christianity revival

Christian Leaders Apologize to Muslims

On October 13, 2006, 38 leading Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in response to his lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany in September of 2006 in which he addressed such topics as Holy War, forced conversion and the need for dialogue and respect between Christians and Muslims.

One year later to the day, on October 13, 2007, another open letter, this time penned by 138 major Muslim leaders, was sent, not just to the Pope, but to any and all Christian leaders around the world. The letter entitled, A Common Word Between Us and You, presents a long and detailed treatise on the common ground between Christians and Muslims, mainly as it relates to the importance of loving the one true God and loving your neighbor.

In response, a group of scholars at Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture drafted the document, Loving God and Neighbor Together: A Christian Response to a Common Word Between Us and You. The letter was then forwarded to Christian leaders and theologians around the world, encouraging them to endorse and sign the statement. The letter, which affirms the importance of loving God and loving your neighbor, as well as the need for dialogue and living in peace, has so far been signed by over 300 Christian leaders, including some prominent names:

• Leith Anderson (president) and Richard Cizik (vice president) of the National Association of Evangelicals.
• Richard Mouw (president), C. Douglas McConnell (dean) and numerous professors from Fuller Theological Seminary.
• Doug Pennoyer (dean) and Leonard Bartlotti (associate professor) of Biola University.
• David Yonggi Cho, senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea.
• Lynn Green, international chairman, Youth With a Mission.
• Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church.
• Stanton L. Jones (provost and professor) and Stephen B. Kellough (chaplain) of Wheaton College.
• Roy Oksnevad, director of Muslim ministry at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton.
• Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral.
• John Stott, rector emeritus at All Souls Church, London.
• Rick Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church.

While much of the content of both documents is positive, many Evangelicals are very concerned about certain aspects of the letter penned by the Yale scholars. For example, it seems to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible. A paragraph in the preamble states, “Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, ‘First take the log out your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye’ (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that, in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the ‘war on terror’), many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbors. Before we ‘shake your hand’ in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.”

Islam expert Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo has called it a “betrayal” and a “sellout,” and has called for Christian leaders who signed the letter to withdraw their names. He explains that the confession of guilt puts Christian communities in Muslim areas of the world at risk.

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the agreement “sends the wrong signal” and contains basic theological problems, especially in “marginalizing” Jesus Christ and offering an apology for the Crusades. “I just have to wonder how intellectually honest this is,” said Mohler. “Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently — that Islam had conquered Europe?”

Some are concerned about “hidden” meanings in the document. A CitizenLink report notes that the very name of the Muslim communiqué — “A Common Word Between Us and You” — is from a verse in the Quran that condemns “people of the Scripture” (Christians) for alleged polytheism (the doctrine of the Trinity).

In a letter responding to criticism he received for signing the statement, Leith Anderson wrote, “Sometimes we all sign onto things that are not all that we would like them to be. … I sought the counsel of other evangelical leaders [who] told me that signing the statement would be especially helpful to Christians who live and minister in Muslim-majority countries and cultures. In fact, some suggested that not signing could be damaging to these Christian brothers and sisters who live among Muslims.”

The full text of the letter from the 138 Muslim leaders and the response which has been signed by over 300 Christian leaders can be found at http://www.yale.edu/faith/abou-commonword.htm. The statement by Leith Anderson explaining why he signed the document can also be found there.

MURPHY’S CHURCH LAW

1. When the Deacons talk about improving the church’s spiritual life, they are never talking about their own.

2. In a committee meeting, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.

3. There will always be empty soft drink cans rolling on the floorboard of your car when your head deacon/elder asks for a ride home from church.

4. You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard, a camera, or a Bible.

5. Everything can be filed under “miscellaneous.”

6. Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a fellowship activity involving food.

7. Any church employee can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he/she has been assigned to do.

8. Any great Sermon that contains no errors will develop errors when transmitted to your printer.

9. After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you did before.

10. When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

11. Following the rules will not get the job done.

12. Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.

13. A Youth Pastor with a clean desk has way too much free time.

14. The last person that quit or was fired will be blamed for everything that goes wrong for at least a year.

(From Sermon Fodder Christian Humor.  To subscribe go to drop an email note to (Sermon_Fodder-subscribe@yahoogroups.com) Sermon_Fodder-subscribe (at) yahoogroups (dot) com.)

GAMBLING

In an article on “What’s Wrong With Buying Lottery Tickets?” Hal Lane observes, “Legalized gambling teaches the following principles:

1. Gambling is good. The state will give its seal of approval to a practice that has led many into addictive and destructive lifestyles. They will be sanctioning a false hope of instant wealth that has resulted in abandoned children, divorce, financial ruin, theft and suicide. They will lose the moral authority to oppose other forms of gambling that will follow.

2. Greed is good. The state will seek to entice players to take a chance on instant wealth. Instead of teaching the biblical principle that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, it will teach that the lack of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

3. It is good to educate the wealthy with money from the poor. Despite skewed statistics that attempt to say that lottery tickets are bought by a cross section of the economic spectrum, the truth is that the poor and desperate buy disproportionately more lottery tickets. “Those making less than $10,000 per year spend more than any other income group, averaging $597 per year. Furthermore, the top 5 percent of lottery players account for over 50 percent of lottery sales, spending on average $3,870 per year.” (Timothy A. Kelly, Family Research Council)

4. The end justifies the means. It is not how we raise money but how we use the money that determines the morality of the means. If citizens are OK with using revenue generated from lottery ticket sales, will state legislators next consider legalizing pornography and prostitution and earmarking those funds for students’ benefits?

Lotteries are thinly veiled cloaks for greed and selfishness. Christians can stand out as stars in a dark culture by refusing to participate in the many forms of gambling, including the lottery.”

http://erlc.com/article/whats-wrong-with-buying-a-lottery-ticket

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Contextual Preaching:
The Key to Preaching So Your Audience Can Hear
by Ed Stetzer

At the heart of effective preaching is a solid missiological perspective.  Are you communicating in such a way that your words actually convey biblical truth to your audience?  Or does your preaching float right past your hearers because it’s not delivered “on a frequency” that they listen to?  In this respect, we can probably learn as much about good preaching from Hudson Taylor as we can from Haddon Robinson.

Indigenization

Jesus left his comfortable dwelling in heaven and took on the appearance of those he sought to reach.  He wore their clothes, ate their food, spoke their language, and understood their culture at its deepest level.  He fully identified with his hearers.

The idea behind indigenization for us today is that a church should spring forth out of the soil in which it is planted. It is indigenous in that its leadership, expressions, forms, and functions reflect a biblical expression in a certain context.

What we have found is that when the pastoral leadership, core of the church, and community all line up, the potential for the church to take on an indigenous or contextual form is significant. This combination seems to provide a greenhouse for explosive growth.  Preaching is a central part of that process.

Justified: Creation vs. Evolution: Does It Matter (as a professing Christian) Where You Stand?

Good post from a very interesting blog.

The 12 Mistakes of Christmas Outreach

The authors each have over 30 years experience with holistic church marketing and community outreach, working with churches and ministries across nearly 100 denominations, in every state and in many other countries. Drawing on that wide experience, they outline in this article what they’ve learned to be the 12 most common mistakes churches make in Christmas outreach.

They strongly believe any church that takes active steps to avoid these mistakes will dramatically increase the effectiveness of their outreach. Christmas outreach done in the way described here will positively impact every other facet of a church’s ministry, and many of the recommendations provide smarter ways to plan for the whole year.