|
Friends United Meeting |
 |
April 2005
An Invitation to a Place of Response
By Alan Weinacht
A reader submitted this question to ChristianityToday.com: “When and why did the custom of conducting altar calls begin?” The reply was: “The custom of the evangelist or preacher inviting people forward is tied to revival preaching in the 19th century.” While there have been variations on the emphasis, the evangelistic use of the altar has consistently been to invite people to be clear about their intentions to follow Christ.
Clearly many Friends were influenced by this method. By the time I began to experience the altar call in the 1960s, its use had broadened into a sacred space for people to respond to any particular working of the Spirit. That working might be of personal or corporate nature. It might be with regard to sin, the burdens of life, intercessory prayer, response to specific calling or leading, and for blessing those moving forward in a leading from God. Rightly employed, the use of the altar expresses a core Quaker conviction — that the Living Christ is ever present as our Teacher, Lord and Savior. Immediate presence calls for immediate response.
Three Questions
The evangelistic use of the altar is a fairly recent innovation in terms of the life span of the church. It is barely 200 years old. As a method of invitation it may pass away with time. Whether it stays or goes as a method, it poses at least three questions that a meeting needs to bear in mind if the worship setting is to be a place where Friends are free to respond to the presence of their Living Lord.
1. “How does the body of Christ gathered in worship invite or give its members permission to respond to Christ’s presence and call?”
This question takes two tracks — what is right response to God and what is a culturally appropriate response?
One hazard of speaking frequently about the immediate presence of Christ is that our language and attitude can take on an air of presumption or even indifference, as if Jesus was just another guy in row four instead of God incarnate, resurrected and seated at the right hand of God. Biblical accounts and the experiential witness of Friends readily affirm that the immediate presence of Jesus can take the seeker in many directions. These experiences range from an overwhelming, comforting presence to heart-rending, life-shattering conviction. They are not limited to the worship setting but they do happen there and the effective use of an invitation helps give shape to a worshiper’s response.
The invitation to a place of response engages the whole person — mind, heart, will and body. The public altar is one way of saying that we take the presence of Christ literally and seriously enough to be prepared for it. The freedom of the local congregation to order the use of the altar by its sensibilities allows for what is culturally appropriate.
2. “How does the body of Christ receive the confessions of its members?”
Confession is part of the life of the church. Without it we are a dishonest people. With it we become a people filled with truth and grace. We affirm the priesthood of believers as we hear one another’s prayers and confessions and assure one another of God’s infinite grace.
Richard Foster reminds us in The Celebration of Discipline that, “Confession is so difficult a Discipline for us partly because we view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God’s love and to confess our need openly before our brothers and sisters. We know that we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride which cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied but transformed.”
My wife, Margie, and I discuss where Friends are as a movement in this area of truthfulness about who we are as sinners. We wonder if our meetings for worship are becoming places where truth about who we are is not given space to be rightly owned in a well-ordered way. Without taking away from the good critique that Friends make of highly structured worship, I still have to ask, what is the negative fallout when we remove corporate prayers that own our propensity to fall short of the glory of God and space to intentionally reflect upon the sin that crouches at the door and seeks to devour us?
One can argue that unprogrammed worship should give the needed space for truthfulness about what needs confession. I agree, it can and should. But that is not how Friends, by and large, appear to use the unprogrammed time in our day. The altar helps fill this vital niche as a time for confession. It is a place where, under the piercing gaze of the prophetic word, and in the safety of caring, supportive Friends, I can admit, “I have failed.”
3. “How does the body of Christ adequately counsel and support its members that are striving to live out their immediate response to their Lord?”
Friends use the altar correctly when they use it as a place to bring the wisdom of the elders and the needs of those responding to Christ’s immediate presence together. The rule of thumb is that people do not seek alone. We are, after all, a body. In one Friends congregation I served as pastor, we knew we were hitting on all cylinders when worshipers exercised the freedom to use the altar as a place of prayer, whether during an invitation or spontaneously at their own heart’s desire at any time during the worship hour. The elders of the meeting had a good sense of when to join these Friends as a supportive presence.
Often I have witnessed Friends visiting at length after the worship service has been dismissed. Sitting at the front of the worship room, heads leaned back against the altar, these Friends share vision, insights and the rich hope of the gospel as they laugh, cry and pray together. They rise with beaming smiles on their faces. What an inspiring experience of community!
Further ministry is possible because elders were those supporting and offering counsel. When they meet at the next Ministry and Oversight session, they can discuss needed follow- up. A worshiper’s response to a sense of leading might require the meeting’s engagement in a discernment process, a clearness committee, and ultimately blessing a Friend sent out in kingdom service.
What about us?
One dimension of the use of the altar easily overlooked is that it is a means for the worshiping body to do significant heart and soul work together. Friends have a good grasp of the corporate nature of the church. We are not a group simply because we happen to be individuals going the same direction. We are a body with a corporate identity. It is impossible to conceive of Christianity outside of its corporate life.
The altar creates space for the body to do its work. Members pray, confess, receive confession and commit to transformed living. One of my richest memories of Friends worship came in a programmed worship setting when, during the unprogrammed portion of the hour, the Spirit called the body to do the work of reconciliation within its own ranks. In healthy Friends fashion, the rest of the agenda was scuttled. Church happened that day as members met one another at the altar, some went to other parts of the building, some remained seated but all were engaged in patching up relationships, owning their stuff and encouraging one another. This process happened two weeks in a row and then was over. We moved on as a much healthier body of Friends.
The invitational use of an altar as a place for worship, seeking, confession, support and community is only a tool. It is a means of calling Christ’s people to deepen their relationship and service to the Living Christ and His Church. It is a powerful means of offering pastoral care in a way that does not relegate such ministry to a class of ministers. It is the work of the body of Christ building itself up in love and a means for living as a people of truth and grace.
Only time will tell if Christians see the invitation to an altar at the front of a worship room as a culturally relevant way of doing this kind of pastoral work. But for Friends to effectively present the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are hungry for good news, they need to address the questions the use of the altar forces them to answer.
How we give people permission to respond, a place to be truthful through confession, link them with those wiser and more experienced than themselves and support them through faith’s journey are vital issues for sound ministry.
Alan Weinacht most recently served as general superintendent of Indiana Yearly Meeting and plans to return to pastoral ministry.