Walking the Aisle, Missing the Gospel? Four Cautions About Altar Calls

The final notes of the invitation hymn linger in the air. The preacher stands at the front, arms open wide, calling for decisions, repentance, and rededication. The atmosphere is thick with emotion, and the words “Just as I Am” echo in the background. Church members kneel on the church steps in fervent prayer. For many, this moment—the altar call—is a hallmark of evangelical tradition. It's a scene that stirs powerful memories of personal decisions, spiritual awakenings, or even life-altering commitments.

But what if this familiar moment, so deeply ingrained in many churches, deserves a closer look? What if, in its well-intentioned simplicity, it has unintentionally drifted from its biblical moorings?

In this article, I will explain why I am hesitant to give altar calls as a part of weekly ministry and think there might be better ways to call for a response to God's Word. I recognize that, for all the cautions I offer regarding it, God has used the altar call for good in many instances. My goal isn’t to mock the altar call or demean those who have benefitted from it, but to offer my cautions and reasons for handling gospel invitations in a different manner.

Here are four cautions against altar calls: 

1. They weaken biblical authority

2. They obscure the demands of the gospel

3. They promote mysticism

4. They displace the ordinances  

Caution #1: Altar Calls Weaken Biblical Authority 

By that, I mean this: altar calls take a possibly good and useful human tradition and make it an essential element of weekly worship, all without clear biblical command or precedent. 

While we see frequent invitations to salvation in the Bible, altar calls are neither modeled nor commanded in Scripture as a feature of the church's corporate worship. Yet, many advocates of altar calls require them in the church's public worship, binding the consciences of God's people to practice something that is not actually seen in Scripture. 

To be sure, Biblical preaching requires a response and often includes an invitation, or even a command, for sinners to repent and believe (Isaiah 55; Matthew 7:13ff; 11:28-30; Acts 2:38; 16:31). None of these invitations, however, centered upon moving from one physical location to another as some kind of spiritual act.

Which should make us ask...

...if they aren't in the Bible, where did altar calls come from? 

There is no evidence whatsoever for the apostolic church calling the front of the church “the altar.” That came later, as sacramental theology developed and wrongly regarded the Mass as a sacrifice and thus the table at the front as an altar where that sacrifice occurred each week. Over time, the front of the church building was regarded as especially sacred.

During the Great Awakening in the 1700s, individuals interested in further discussion about the state of their souls might be invited to meet the preacher after the service in front of the church--the “altar.”  During the Second Great Awakening, semi-Pelagian Charles Finney implemented his “new measures” in pursuit of more conversions, arguing that "the results justify my methods." He believed in decisional regeneration and thus resorted to any means necessary to manipulate the human will into making such decisions. The front pew of the church was called the “anxious bench,” the place for particularly-convicted hearers to come sit. This innovation eventually developed into the “altar call,” a practice that became globally famous through the ministry of Billy Graham.

Of course, just because altar calls are rooted in the questionable theology and practice of Charles Finney does not automatically make them wrong, it should give us pause before insisting that they remain a central part of the church’s weekly liturgy, when the fact simply is that altar calls were unknown to the Christian Church for the first 1800 years of its existence. Two hundred years might be long enough for them to be regarded as “old fashioned” to some, but in terms of church history, they’re recent innovations.

It is far safer and wiser to conform the church’s practice first to Scripture and second to the longstanding practices of Christians through the ages. The lack of altar calls for 90% of Christian history should give us pause before we implement or insist upon such a practice.

While we’re commanded to call sinners to repentance when we preach the Word, we're not commanded anywhere to have an altar call as a stand alone element of worship.  

My point here is that, absent a biblical command or pattern to have an altar call, we should be cautious about adding one, especially one rooted so clearly in human tradition. 

Caution #2: Altar Calls (Can) Obscure the Demands of the Gospel

The most serious danger in altar calls is that they can and often do confuse the terms of the gospel and the call to conversion. Biblically, we see calls to conversion in texts like Matthew 11:28-30, Isaiah 55, Acts 2:38; 16:31; Mark 1:15. These invitations include a clear call to repent and believe in Christ.

I believe in giving an invitation whenever we preach God’s Word. By that, I mean calling sinners to come to Christ in repentance and faith. Insofar as all of Scripture points to Christ, no expository sermon is faithfully complete until it has demonstrated the Spirit-intended connection to Christ and His saving work. This invitation should happen throughout the sermon as appropriate, not just during the final point or as a special part of the service.

Back to altar calls. 

Altar calls, well-intentioned though they are, can confuse the terms of the gospel. 

Biblical conversion means genuine faith and repentance in Christ. It is a divine work of the Holy Spirit of God, whereby He grants sinners the new birth (John 3), the gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), and the gift of repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18). He secures our voluntary obedience to the gospel and gives us a new heart. While conversion absolutely involves a human response, it is ultimately a divine work.

Conversion cannot  be reduced to some kind of human-initiated physical response (such as walking an aisle or raising a hand), nor should making such a gesture be added as some kind of work to the simple call to repent and believe. 

With altar calls, we simultaneously risk subtracting from the gospel (“just pray this prayer and if you did, raise your hand”) even as we risk adding to the gospel (“come down to the front of the church, kneel at an old-fashioned altar, and call out to Jesus to save you”). 

I know individuals who needlessly delayed coming to Christ because they were under the impression that doing so required going in front of the church. I likewise know people who went years thinking they were saved simply because they had responded to an altar call. They were trusting in a physical work they had done rather than the finished work of Christ.

In churches where altar calls are part of the culture, the act of walking the aisle is often regarded by the congregation as an adequate visible display of commitment to Christ. The Scriptures, however, require the real fruit of repentance, which are not easily faked.  

In sum, the preaching of the gospel demands a spiritual response (repentance and faith), not a physical response (raise a hand, recite a prayer, change locations). Altar calls, especially for the unconverted, can imply that conversion involves little more than responding physically. I fear that many who sincerely responded to altar calls will stand condemned on the last day, for they trusted in their response during the closing hymn rather than in Jesus Christ Himself. 

Caution #3: Altar Calls (Often) Promote Mysticism

In my many years in revivalistic churches, the altar call was often approached with great seriousness. This can certainly be good, especially when eternal souls may be wrestling with the gospel. 

However, I found that this emphasis bordered on mysticism. There was an implicit--and often explicit--belief that decisions made on the steps of the platform were more spiritual, more lasting, and more meaningful than responses made in the heart from the pew or in the car on the way home. The visible show of a physical response was regarded a necessary sign of a person’s commitment, and the number of people streaming forward was a visible testimony to the preacher's pulpiteering prowess. 

Indeed, in Baptist churches that would (rightly) eschew sacramental theology, altar calls are spoken of in language that can only be regarded as sacramental: something special, mystical, and more holy occurs when someone prays at the front of the church, when they publicly step out to choose Jesus. Historian Joel Carpenter, in his book Revive Us Again, noted that "'Going forward' became a fundamentalist sacrament" (77). 

The notion that some particular physical location is somehow more sacred, holy, spiritual, or closer to God runs counter to the teaching of Jesus in John 4 that new covenant worship is not about location, but intention and the heart. It is not the church building but the church body that is the household of God. While I am in favor of treating the church building with respect because it is the place where we typically gather to worship the holy God, treating the church building, and especially some little section of that building as more sacred than other parts has more in common with the sacramental theology (that we baptists rightly reject) than the teaching of the New Testament.

Likewise, when everything's made to rise and fall on what people decide during the four verses of “Just as I Am” or “I Surrender All” (along with a vastly over-inflated belief in the power of the human will), invitations can become high-pressure moments of emotional manipulation. 

Rather than honest appeals to every man’s conscience through the clear preaching of the Word (2 Corinthians 4), altar calls become appeals to people’s emotions through the soft music and plaintive appeals of the preacher. Indeed, some churches assign church members to go forward during the invitation to create the social and psychological pressure needed to force others to go forward. I’ve stood in a pew, one of only a handful, who did not give in to the traveling preacher’s pressure to come forward, robbing him of the ability to claim in his next letter that “every person in the service came forward.” I don't apologize. 

Caution #4: Altar Calls Displace the Ordinances. 

Often the argument for altar calls is that they provide space for a public confession of faith in Christ. But did you know that God has already ordained a way for new believers to publicly declare their faith in Jesus?

Baptism

While the book of Acts has no examples of individuals walking an aisle or coming forward to declare their faith, it does have numerous examples of new converts declaring their faith in Jesus in the waters of baptism. Baptism is the biblically-ordained means for a new believer to “go public” with their faith. It is here that they verbally, publicly, and symbolically testify to their death to sin and their new life in Christ. It is a picture of cleansing, of death and resurrection, and a picture of identification with Jesus and His people.

Altar calls, by attempting to be the means of publicly declaring faith in Jesus, subtly subvert baptism and effectively drains it of its meaning. If I’ve already declared my faith by going forward, why do I now need to be baptized? If the real thing happened on the church steps, then baptism becomes little more than a hoop to jump through.

Similarly, if there is no altar call, then when and how will believers examine their hearts and apply the message to their lives? What space will be given in the life of the church for self-examination, reflection, and repentance?

The Lord’s Supper

One of the explicitly stated purposes of the Lord’s Supper is for believers to examine themselves, as well as to repair broken relationships with one another, to confess sin, and to reflect upon and remember the death of Christ. 

I sometimes wonder if our well-founded opposition to sacramental theology has landed the car in a different ditch: a devaluation of the Scriptural ordinances. And I wonder if the sacramental value placed on altar calls is an unintended by-product of our lack of emphasis on the Biblical ordinances. I have been troubled by those who have argued that churches should celebrate the Lord's Supper less often (so it doesn't become old hat) while arguing that we should have  altar calls more often (every Sunday). I think that's backwards. Altar calls, in their attempt to fill the void, end up minimizing the place of the ordinances. 

Conclusion:

The altar call, like any tradition, must be measured against the timeless standard of Scripture. While it has served as a meaningful moment of conviction and conversion for many, its practice must not overshadow the deeper, ongoing work of discipleship that marks true faith in Christ. Salvation is not found in walking an aisle but in walking with Christ. The invitation to repent and believe is not confined to the closing minutes of a service but believers speaking the gospel throughout the week to the world around them.  

Instead of clinging to the altar call, we should instead call sinners to repentance throughout our sermons and throughout our weeks. Our goal is not merely to evoke decisions but to cultivate disciples, fostering faith that endures beyond the moment and bears fruit in a lifetime of obedience.

As we reflect on our practices, may we be faithful stewards of the gospel, inviting all to come—not just to an altar, but to the Savior Himself.