1. The Apostles Creed
 
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into Hades. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

2. Doctrinal Statement
We believe:

1. The Bible, verbally and plenarily inspired, is God's infallible word, the final authority for all faith and life.
2. There is one God, personal, infinite, perfect, and eternally existing as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
3. Jesus Christ is true God and true man, was born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, provided substitutionary atonement for lost man, and rose bodily from the grave.
4. The Holy Spirit is a Divine person and works in conviction of men and in the regeneration, sanctification, and preservation of the believer.
5. God directly created the universe from no pre-existing substance. We reject both naturalistic and theistic evolution.
6. Satan is a fallen, created personality, opposed to all that is holy and is destined for eternal punishment.
7. Man was made in God's image and fell into sin in Adam and is now a sinner both by nature and choice, and can be restored to God's favor only by God's provision in Christ as applied by the Holy Spirit.
8. God's provision in Christ is the only ground for man's justification which includes both pardon from sin and the gift of eternal life.
9. Salvation comes to man only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, apart from any human merit.
10. All those who have experienced salvation are members of the “church which is His body” and thus are eligible for baptism and membership in the local church. We believe each believer, as a member of local church, has the spiritual obligation to support their church with tithes and offerings. We believe this applies to missionaries as well.
11. Baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper are ordinances of the church.
12. Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church and every local church has the right under Christ to govern itself.
13. Every believer is eternally secure, being”kept by the power of God.”
14. All persons will experience resurrection: believers to a state of eternal life and unbelievers to eternal punishment.
15. We believe in the personal and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ in bodily form which is the hope of all believers -- even so -- come, Lord Jesus!

I write on this subject for the purpose of clarification and explanation of why I do not use this procedure.

There are many people who visit our church and ask why an altar call is not used as a general practice at the close of our services. This document will provide a brief explanation.

I write with no malice toward those who may differ with me. As you read my reasons, you may agree or disagree - that is your privilege as a New Testament believer. What you must do, however, is seek to be objective, open-minded, and as much as possible, try to approach this question without preconceived prejudices. You must then examine this question in the light of Scripture to see if there is a biblical command to use such a procedure.

I will list a number of reasons why I do not use an altar-call. After making each point, I will try to amplify it a bit for the sake of clarity.

Reason Number One:

As we read God’s Word, we find absolutely no command or example anywhere to use such a procedure. Therefore, we conclude that it is not a biblical procedure. This is very important because there are many people who think that if an altar is not used, that the very Word of Christ itself is being violated.

There are several objections that may be raised here. First, someone may say, “What about our Lord’s command to confess Him publicly?” We must ask - what does Jesus mean by this command? Did Jesus have in mind making a verbal statement at the end of a preaching service after we have walked to the front of the church? This concept could never be proven from Scripture. I believe what Christ had in mind was the daily walk and confession of Christ by the believer before the watching world. It is relatively easy to confess publicly before a church of sympathetic friends. It is quite different to confess Christ before those who may be hostile and unsympathetic to the gospel message.

I have known many people who have gone forward often for various reasons, but seldom, if ever, have publicly testified for Jesus in their home, office or place of employment. It is possible for some people to conclude that they have publicly confessed Christ because they walked an aisle, while at the same time they may be denying Christ on a daily basis at work, home, and among their friends. Today, public profession of our faith has been reduced to a meaningless ritual based on a human tradition, while it fails to touch human lives in the very areas of our daily living. Jesus had in mind the Christian's daily life and walk when He said we must confess Him publicly. He never intended this confession to be reduced to a one-time decision in the church building.

Another objection raised to our point that the altar-call is not a biblical procedure, is that there are many things we do or practice in church which are not explicitly taught in Scripture - such as having a Sunday School or Vacation Bible School, or an evening service. The point is that most who defend the use of the altar-call, usually do so as if they are defending the Word of God itself - and if a church doesn't use an altar-call, it is considered to be less than scriptural.

If we use any procedure in our churches that does not have a biblical warrant, we must examine the fruits of such procedures to see if their continued use can be justified. It is my conviction that the results of the altar-call-system do not justify its practice in the church. This will be further amplified in my other points.

Reason Number Two:

The altar-call confuses two radically different invitations: The gospel invites the sinner to come to Christ; the altar-call invites the sinner to come to the front of the church. This is a subtle switch in the invitation that confuses the listener with an unbiblical decision.

Instead of considering the demands the gospel lays on him, the listener is left nervously deciding whether he or she should go forward. Many times, the listener is not even sure what will happen if he does not go forward. All he knows is that the preacher tells him he is not a Christian if he doesn't come to the front, or that he is being disobedient to Christ by not coming forward.

Yes, the Scriptures do invite men to come to Christ, but as we examine the main Scriptures used as a basis for the altar-call, we see that, in their context, the listener is exhorted to go directly to the Lord rather than move to some point or place to be counseled.

Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Matthew 22:9 “Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.”

John 7:37 “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.”

John 7:38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Romans 10: 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”

Revelation 22:17 “And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”

Perhaps the greatest soul-winning Pastor of modern times was Charles Hadden Spurgeon. He knew what the real gospel invitation was. We would never find Spurgeon using the modern altar-call system. In his book, the Forgotten Spurgeon, Ian Murray quotes Spurgeon addressing people at the close of one of His services saying; “Go home alone, trusting in Jesus. 'I should like to go into the inquiry room,' I dare say you would, but we are not willing to pander to popular superstition. We fear that in those rooms; men are warmed into a, fictitious confidence. Very few of the supposed converts of inquiry-rooms turn out well. Go to your God at once, even where you are now. Cast yourself on Christ; now, at once, before you stir an inch!" (p. 108)

Reason Number Three:

The altar-call becomes a great source of pride for many people in the church.

Those who have gone forward (often times because of the stirring, emotional appeals of the preacher) feel they are in better standing with God than those who didn't go forward. Thus, we see the altar-call destroying the whole ground of justification in the believer's life. Going forward, it is assumed, makes one more pleasing to God. Going forward a thousand times cannot make any of us more pleasing to God. The finished work of Christ is the only ground or basis of our standing with the Lord. And yet, I have known people who have been proud of the fact that they go forward often and kneel and pray or make some commitment to Christ. The same decision could and should be made in the heart as we sit and listen to the preaching of God’s word. Going forward, for some, is nothing more that an emotional ritual that gives temporary relief to the conscience. But, just as the drug addict must go back again and again for his fix, so it is, many people who have been deceived by this procedure must go forward time and again to maintain the “feeling” that they are pleasing to the Lord. They have either forgotten, or have never really known the significance of the objective work of Christ. Tragically, some are so biblically shallow, that they could read these words of mine and not even know what I'm talking about.

Reason Four:

The altar-call, for many who use it, is based on an unbiblical view of conversion and salvation.

Salvation is a work of divine grace by the Holy Spirit. When one is born again, it is because the Holy Spirit has changed his heart and nature. (see Eph. 2: 1-10; John 3:1-9)

The altar-call system assumes that salvation, instead of being a work of divine grace, is solely the result of the decision made by the sinner. If the sinner can just be made to agree to the three or four statements of faith, and be made to sign the pledge-card signifying faith, it is assumed that salvation has taken place. What we have is a man-made decision replacing the spiritual, supernatural work of being born again. There are millions of people who have walked aisles, and who have been given the assurance of salvation, who have never really been saved. Are we not guilty, as were the false prophets of Jeremiah's time, when they cried out, “Peace, peace, when there is not peace”?

One pastor, who is nationally known, admitted that 98 out of every 100 people who walk down his church aisle for salvation will never be seen again. It is my contention that, with using the right message and methods, those two out of the 100 will be saved without having to resort to using the altar-call. I have often asked myself – “Doesn't anyone care about all of those who come forward who are either deceived or disappointed?” What great damage we may be doing to the hearts of men!

Reason Number Five:

The altar-call-system is a relatively new, religious procedure which developed under the ministry of Charles Finney. It has subsequently become the sole criterion of an evangelistic and biblical church.

Many people can sit through a worship service devoid of any real biblical content or exposition, with little or no searching application, and then patiently tolerate an altar-call at the end -- and then conclude they were in a really God-honoring service! These same people can attend a church where the Word of God is proclaimed and fearlessly applied to the heart and conscience, and be brought to a place of true soul-examination, yet they leave, concluding the church was not evangelistic because the “man-made tradition” of an altar-call was not given. To make the altar-call the sole criterion of an evangelistic church is simply an historical and a biblical error.

In his book, Decisional Regeneration (pp. 16-17), James E. Adams says, “One may read thousands of pages of the history of the Christian Church without finding a single reference to the ‘old-fashioned altar-call’ before the last century. Most Christians are surprised to learn that history (before the time of Charles Finney--1792-1875) knows nothing of this type of ‘invitation’. The practice of urging men and women to make a physical movement at the conclusion of a meeting was introduced by Charles Finney in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Dr. Albert B. Dod, a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary at the time of Mr. Finney's ministry, pointed out the newness of the practice and showed that this method was without historical precedent. In his review of Finney's Lectures on Revival, Professor Dod stated that one will search the volumes of church history in vain for a single example of this practice before the 1820's.

Conclusion:

My reasons for objecting to using an altar-call are as follows:

1. It is not a biblical procedure.

2. It confuses the listener or worshipper with two different invitations.

3. It often becomes a source of pride.

4. It is often based on an unbiblical view of salvation.

5. It is a new procedure developed by Charles Finney.

I hope you all realize that we always give an invitation; we invite men to come to Christ, to examine their lives, to meet with us after the service if they have any questions. It is always right to give an invitation; however, it is with the mechanics of the outward altar-call that is often confused as the invitation that concerns me.

I have many ministerial friends who use such a procedure; I do not stand over them as their judge. I can only be true to my conscience and try to be as true to God's Word as I possibly can.

I trust this helps to clarify and explain my position for you. I believe it is a biblical position in line historically with the Church throughout the centuries. If you still have lingering questions, I can recommend a number of articles, papers, and booklets to read on this same subject.

May God grant each of us the Spirit of wisdom and understanding in His precious Word.