Vol. 31, No. 8 -- September 2011
CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH OF THE DEAF
9545 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910
CHRIST LUTHERAN CHURCH OF THE DEAF
9545 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910
"Why didn't you have an altar call!?"
That was a question a friend asked me, after she came to visit a church where I was preaching as a guest pastor. My friend belonged to an evangelical church nearby where the pastor offered an altar call at the end of every sermon.
An "altar call" is a preacher's invitation for people who are not yet believers to trust Christ. In some churches, the pastor invites people to come to the front of the church (to the altar) where he can pray with them. In other churches the pastor simply asks people to close their eyes and bow their heads while he leads them in a prayer of confession and faith in Christ.
What my friend heard me preach that Sunday morning was a typical Lutheran sermon, composed of two basic Biblical doctrines: Law and Gospel. The Law is God's Word that shows us our sins and teaches us that our sin separates us from God forever. The Gospel is God's Word that shows us our Savior and tells us what Christ has done in His suffering, death, and resurrection to remove our guilt, forgive our sins, and open heaven for us. These are the elements you will find in the heart of every good Lutheran sermon. However, my friend heard this as an evangelistic sermon directed especially to unbelievers. But my sermon was missing the final invitation to trust Christ. That omission bothered her so much, she called me two days later to ask, "Why didn't you have an altar call?"
Her question threw me off balance. I didn't know what to answer. I was not even thinking about unbelievers when I preached that sermon. I had been invited to preach to the members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lombard, Illinois, so it was to them -- the faithful members of the church -- to whom I spoke. (I think my sermon was on the meaning of baptism for our daily Christian life.) So, should I tell my friend, "I don't think that there were any unbelievers in worship last Sunday morning"? No, I couldn't say that, for two reasons.
First, if it were true that all the people in church that morning were only faithful church members and there were no visitors, that means we are failing to reach out to people who are lost and without Christ.
Second, even if it were true that only church members were in worship that Sunday morning, that is no guarantee that all were true believers. There is a difference between the "visible church" -- the organization -- and the "invisible Church" -- the "Holy Christian Church" that we confess in the Apostles' Creed. Salvation does not depend on membership in any organization, but it is found only in true faith in Christ. And we know that the visible church has false believers among its members.
Jesus told two stories which illustrate this truth. One is the parable of the wheat and the weeds, where true wheat (true believers) and fake wheat (false believers) grew in the same field (the world) until harvest time (Judgment Day; Matthew 13.24-30). The other parable is the story about the lost coin. The coin was not lost out in the street or out in the garbage. It was in the house. But it was still lost, until it was found by its owner (Luke 15.8-10). We can be certain that among our active church members we have "lost coins" and "fake wheat." Only God knows who they are.
So what did I finally answer my friend who asked me why I didn't have an altar call at the end of my sermon? I am afraid that I bumbled a clumsy answer like, "We Lutherans don't do that sort of thing." But her question bothered me. Now as often as is fitting, I try to invite people who do not yet trust Christ to do so. Dear Reader, that invitation is also for you.
~~Pastor Ron