The Altar Call

One of the interesting things we encountered when we moved to the South was the difference in worship from what we experienced in the North. For so many years, we worshipped at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio, which we loved and still love. But as we would jokingly say about our church or our form of worship, we were the “frozen chosen”. We worshipped, we prayed, we sang hymns, we wore suits, but Heaven forbid, we did not show any emotion. We maintained decorum, no matter what.

When we moved to Georgia, we searched for a church. We had some misses along the way, and we eventually found a phenomenal church, First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville. In so many ways, it is different from Westminster, but in so many ways, we love it just as much as we loved Westminster. As much as I would have never imagined it, we are even attending the Contemporary Service, and I’m sure if he were dead, the Reverend John Neely, the Pastor of Music at Westminster, would be rolling over in his grave. Westminster had a world-renowned pipe organ, with a huge incredible choir singing traditional hymns, oftentimes in Latin. We are attending a service with guitars, drums, contemporary music, with everyone singing along, raising their hands to Heaven, sometimes dancing and swaying to the music. In many cases, people wear blue jeans. Whew, I still find it hard to believe!

In any event, the one tradition that has enthralled me and captured my heart is the “Altar Call”. Toward the end of the service, as we prepare for the last song, the Pastor will say something like, “The altar is open, if you’d like to join the fellowship, make a faith profession or just come and pray.” This has become one of my favorite parts of the service. You’ll see various people or groups of people go to the front of the church, and kneel down at the altar. They will pray for whatever issues, pains, problems that they are facing in their lives. In many cases, it’s one solitary person, going forward to pray alone, silently sharing with God their pain. In other cases, the Pastor will come down, pray over them, comfort them for whatever ails them in life.

In many cases, you will see other people, or groups of people, heading to the front of the church, praying over them, holding them, comforting them for whatever is going on in their lives. In most cases, I have no idea what is going on in some of these people’s lives. It’s just so compelling to see so many people coming forward, being there, praying over them, being there for their brothers and sisters suffering. I honestly tear up just about every week watching the love of God in action through these people. Once, I was one of those people, coming forward for one of my brothers, along with probably 15 other men, comforting someone who needed the love of God in his life. It was incredible feeling the love of God, the power of prayer as we all stood with him, laying on hands, supporting him as he laid himself bare into the hands of God. It probably did as much for me as it did for him, being a part of praying over him.

As noted, my history, my tradition is nothing like this, I was a part of the “frozen chosen”. I never thought I would ever need to or feel moved to go forward for an “Altar Call”. But, life has a way of doing things to you that you would never imagine. As we’ve faced the greatest struggles we’ve ever faced in our lives, as we’ve fallen into the deepest depths we’ve ever experienced, Laurel and I did the unimaginable, at least from our history, we went to the altar to pray. As we got there, the emotions poured out, I couldn’t stop crying, praying for God to help us, to heal us. And then, the hands started coming. I felt the hands of friends, the hands of God upon us. To this day, I have no idea who those hands were, other than I knew they were the hands of God. And then Dr. Chappell started praying over us. And a certain calm, a certain peace came over me. The words I’ll never forget, the words that I still cling to, Davis spoke, “God has this”. Yes, God has this. Just like everything else, God has this.

The Altar is open. More to come.