Altar calls? At conference? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable altar calls are for some people? For a person? For me?
Do you even care?
Altar calls are very "baptist" in my perceiving mind and thinking. We are United Methodists! My only experience with altar calls has been at my mammaw's southern baptist church in New Mexico; Temple Baptist Church specifically, where Reverend Penrod would reward members for inviting friends to church. Where Reverend Penrod would call the adults to come put their house in order all while his own house was fraudulent and unscrupulous.
Sunday School was a joke. Rewards for bringing your friends. I didn't have friends I could, or would, ever invite to that church. I received no prizes. But some brought many friends. A few earned themselves a shiny new television set. That was what Sunday School was, a means of earned grace - favour in the eyes of the pastor. Works above faith, because as we all know "faith without works is dead". Right?
And church was no better. Fire and brimstone for the sinner spouted from a preacher who beat his wife, embezzled funds, and displaced deacons right and left. Then came the altar call. I heard the murmurs, the talk; I was 8 years old, why was I not going forward and "accepting Christ"? 2 reasons you old ladies: 1) Christ doesn't need my acceptance, and 2) I hear the words of judgement you spit out about everyone who goes to the altar for prayer, for confession, for a clean heart and a clean slate. Music playing Just As I Am does not drown out your whispered, critical words. So what if he had an affair, if she goes to the bar after dark, that they like to "swing". Let God judge the sinner, YOU tend to YOU!
I would never subject myself to that...gossip. Ever. And yet -
and yet,
i did.
Before my 17th birthday, before my parents were to remarry, each other. Strange yes, I know. As soon as my mother announced her intentions I found my way into the little sanctuary of Hacienda Baptist Church. An there, before God and people I barely knew, I confessed my need for Jesus Christ. But it was a fluke thing that did not ever stick, or was never real...don't know which. I am never assured I have opened the door to the ever knocking Jesus. I lack the ability to trust. And because I trust nothing I feel no assurance, and that is terrifying. So I work. I “serve”. Because after all,
"faith without works is dead".
I am not comfortable with altar calls. Church is very abusive to some people. To one person. To me.
Thank you for listening to my rant, Bishop.
meMonica
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