I don’t know CS, I agree that often in Scripture people hear Jesus or the apostles speak and at the end ask what they must do to be saved. But you also have Jesus issuing summons to the people who would make up the 12 “come follow me” without being prompted by the “what must I do to be saved” question.

I suspect that there are lots of ways to come to Jesus - some which aren’t even covered in the Bible.

I think when we ask people to make faith decisions we are simply providing language to something which is already in their hearts. That’s how I read Chris’ post.

The challenge for me is how to ask without ending up manipulating. I want people to respond to Jesus, not my passion.

What about this?

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is heavy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

If that’s not an “ask” then I don’t know what is!

I think the point is that many are good at the “repent, you sinner” part, but not good at the “let me help you take Christ for yourself right now if you would like” part.

Too often we’re great at discussing the problem - sin, but not offering the solution - taking Christ.  It could be that this guy heard his whole life that he was a sinner and maybe even heard about Jesus a whole lot.  But maybe he never heard that Jesus offered HIM the opportunity to be forgiven and have eternal life.

Brian L.

I never would have asked how to be saved, even though I had a great longing in my heart to be set free from the burden of all the sins I had committed in my life.

I would not have asked because I felt unworthy, and knew I was a sinner.  I had been convicted.  I felt like the last person on earth that Jesus would call.  I had /no idea/ that salvation did not depend on works, but instead on simple belief.

I figured I’d try to be good, try to be better until maybe one day I’d be saved.

I had been slinking in and sitting in the back row of my wonderful church for 3 months before I answered the Altar Call.

I will be forever grateful to my Pastor for making that call, and to the Holy Spirit for prompting him to do so.

And thank you Lord for giving me a kick in the rump that made me go up there.

CS,
Baloney!!!
There are SO MANY souls out there who are so lost and broken, and all they’re looking for is a hand to lift them out of the darkness.
Jesus went TO the people, he didn’t sit in a temple and wait for them to show up.

CS,
By “many preachers” do you mean those “relevant mega-church pastors?”
I have been involved in two Mega-churches in the course of my discipleship, in addition to other smaller, more conservative churches.

I have experienced more challenge to walk in obedience, live out my faith, share my faith and spend time in God’s word and in prayer in the “relevant” mega-churches than I ever did in the small, non-relevant Baptist Church I attended. I also saw far more lives saved and transformed.  In the Baptist church I attended there was a lot of infighting and politic-ing.  It was one of the main reasons I left.  However, because we were involved in an interdenominational missions agency for so long, I know of other churches from the same Baptist denomination that seem to be healthy churches.  I am certain there are many small conservative Baptist churches that are shining examples of Christ’s church and are leading many to a saving knowlege of Him.  However, if I placed every Baptist church into the same category as the one I attended, based on my limited experience, I would be unfair and in error.  It seems that many people want to lump all emmergent/mega-/relevant churches and pastors into one group—those that preach a watered down gospel.  I am afraid that is what you may have initially done with Chris.  While I am sure there are Mega-churches out there preaching a watered-down version of the gospel, please be careful about making quick assumptions about all of them.

Cs,
Thanks for your reply.  I was just sitting down to write an apology to you. I realize that I was the pot calling the kettle black regarding assumptions I ASSUMED you made.  I don’t know you or where you are coming from and it was wrong of me to lump you into the same category as the nay-sayers that I mentioned in my response.  I am sorry for that and I ask your forgiveness.

Chevette:

No worries there; you are totally forgiven.  You were right on calling me to narrow down my “many” into more specific categories.

In light of my comments about having been a false convert, and how I can’t find similar actions for asking people to engage in an invitation to say a prayer or ask Jesus into their hearts in the Bible, do my comments and zeal make a little more sense?

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CS

praying after someone does not mean a person is saved, its according to the heart at the time, if the holy spirit is convicting them and in their heart they want the lord to save them ok, but if they are just repeating the words, thats about dead as road kill, a lot of churches want people to repete after them just for numbers, to say look what i done, but i think if the preacher preaches the gospel, gives an alter call and let the holy spirit deal with their soul/spirit there will be more true repentance, because the gospel is the power of god unto salvation, the holy spirit takes this preached word and shows a person that they need the savior, i have saw people under such conviction they will cry out save me lest i die, it can be a little different with each person, but the same holy spirit that does the convicting, god needs us to preach and teach the word, but then it is left up to god for the rest. one plants , one waters, but it is god that gives the increase, i had a baptist lady once to ask me if i wanted to be saved, i said yes, so i repeted a prayer after her, and she told me i was saved, but i knew in my heart i was not saved, but when god saved me i knew i was saved, when a person gets saved there is a change in that person, i have seen so many people that said they got saved and still lived like the devil wanted them too, there was no change, brian l, in matt. 11:28-30. jesus said that his yoke was easy and his burdon light, i know you know what it says, you just miss quoted it, we all do that .

Katrina and CS,

One of the actions love brings has to do with believing all things or as some might say, believing the best about another.  Many of your posts seem to assume the worst or believe less than the best.  They seem bent upon splitting hairs and judging semantics rather than rejoicing when a sinner comes home.  Your posts remind me of the older brother in the story of the lost son.  I am so glad someone asked me if I wanted to give my heart to Christ 41 years ago. 

In my church we have seen 21 people give their hearts to Christ since January 13.  These are people being invited to church by friends, asked at the end of a service if they would like to meet Christ, and by the prompting of God’s Holy Spirit saying yes.  I am seeing marriages healed right before my eyes as these folks surrender their hearts to Christ and follow him in obedience.  I am seeing families restored, people discovering sobriety and freedom for the first time ever.  I ask every week and more often than not God is adding to his church those who would believe. 

I would love to engage in dialog with some of these subjects but I don’t have time to have every word split for the worst possible meaning.  I implore you both, lighten up a bit.

Cooperate? Yes, that’s necessary too.

Interesting.  Personally, I just know what the Bible teaches.  God the Father does draw, the Holy Spirit does convict, the Son has delegated us the responsibility to go make disciples.  Jesus also said not only does the Father draw ... He also said that those who come to Him, He will not reject.  I do altar calls because everyone responds differently.  Some need to be asked after they have the facts of the Gospel, and they know they are sinners.  There is no music when I give the call.  There is no constant pleading.  I just state the Gospel clearly and ask them to consider their state.  I leave it up to God.  When a person does respond, I require a period of discipleship prior to baptism.  I strive to ensure that those who do respond are not doing so to please me or someone else.  The parable of the four soils teaches me to expect that some will respond for the wrong reasons.  I was one who was asked and I responded for the right reason - God was saving me.

So many responses, so little time.  I’ll go with the punch line first, then come back to individual responses.

Imagine that a doctor has diagnosed you with cancer.  He has, in graphic detail, told you what you will suffer, how your body will rot and become mangled, and illustrated in several ways the clear signs of the disease.  He tells you that you have not long to live.

At this point, you naturally ask if there is a cure.  He says that, by the grace of a wealthy man, there is a remedy and it is free of charge. 

Does the doctor really need to ask if you want the cure with all of this information?  Did you even have to wait for the doctor saying that there was a cure before you asked for it, in light of the knowledge of your illness?

This should be the same case with sharing our faith with others.  In Acts 2, we see the same sort of thing happening when the people were pricked in their hearts and asked Peter what they needed to do to be saved.  And the answer was not to say a prayer or go to an altar call--he told them to repent.

Instead, we hear stories now where “revivals” happen, and hundreds of thousands of people “come to Christ,” but then less than 1% of those can be found in churches a year later.  Why?  Because they have not done the very things that God commands through the Bible.

Leonard:

“They seem bent upon splitting hairs and judging semantics rather than rejoicing when a sinner comes home. “

When a sinner comes home in repentance and faith, I completely rejoice.  There is nothing more wonderful than when someone is saved by the Grace of God.

That is all when a person is truly saved.  In my experience, more and more people are being stillborn into Christianity because of the misinterpretation of the Gospel or bad teaching.  So what may appear to be “splitting hairs and judging semantics” may very well be leading someone into the mouth of Hell.  That is why it is so important to be exact with what the Bible says about salvation and examples of how people came to Christ.

Peter:

“Is it possible that if the Spirit is drawing a person to Jesus that a human asking if they want to “make a decision” might be valid?

In that case, is it okay to “ask”? “

I would look to Scripture for examples of such cases, and then observe what happened in other cases of the Bible for reference.

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CS