10 Must-Have Tips for Giving a

Public Invitation

Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. (Matthew 11:28)
As though God were entreating you through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ,
be reconciled to God. (II Corinthians 5:20)
A pastor I once knew said Second Corinthians 5:20 changed forever how he
extended an invitation following a sermon. We beg you on behalf of Christ,
Paul said. As a result, the pastor said he no longer gives unemotional and
passive invitations, but pleads with people to come to Jesus.
In the wing of the Christian faith where I dwell and minister, when a pastor
preaches, he expects people to respond, either publically at that moment or
later in private. Or both.
A lot of good churches do not follow the sermons with invitations, however. Its
probably just a personal thing, but when I visit in a church where the sermon is
followed with a hymn or a prayer and nothing else, I feel unsatisfied, like the
salesman has spent the last half-hour selling us on his policy, then got up and
left before asking if we would like to sign up.
My Mississippi church once had a Canadian pastor down for a revival meeting. I
was young and all I knew was holding to the typical pattern for our annual
revivals, so we did everything the same way we did the following year with
Adrian Rogersgreat promotion, enthusiastic gospel singing and public
invitations.
Later, the minister from Canada told someone (who passed it on to me) in his
delicious accent, I couldnt believe it! They gave an altar call in every service!
We did, but we may as well not have for all the response we had. Not all
preachers and every sermon call for this kind of action inside the sanctuary.
There are times when not giving an invitation is the right thing to do, Im sure.
(In my case, those times are rare.) The only way to know for certain is to ask
the Lord and obey the Spirit.
It is reported that Dwight L. Moody once preached, then sent his flock home
without an invitation, telling them to think about these things and come back
next Sunday. However, the Great Chicago Fire occurred that week, taking many
lives and destroying hundreds of homes and scattering his congregation so
completely they would never be reassembled. Mr. Moody reportedly regretted
for the rest of his life not extending that invitation.
I surmise that this same fear is what keeps most of us preachers giving
invitations. We worry about What if I dont and someone is there who needs to
be saved?
Entire books have been written on this subject, and we cannot begin to do it
justice here, but I have a few suggestions on public invitations, lessons learned
over decades of ministry
1. Do not surprise the congregation. Tell them early in the sermon and
again in the middle that you will be asking them to do whatever it is youre
going to be asking them.
In his great crusades, at the front of Billy Grahams sermons he would often
say, Now, tonight I am going to be asking you to commit your lives to Jesus
Christ, or something similar.
When I preached in a British church two Sundays in a row without any response
to my invitation, a deacon explained later, Our pastor gives the altar call only
on Sundays when we have communion, so we expect it then. You surprised us
when you did it. Had you announced when you began that we would be having
a public invitation, the congregation would have been prepared.
2. Make it appropriate to the message. Your plea, the wording of your
invitation, the music, the manner and the length, everything should work
together harmoniously.
3. Plan in advance how you will go about it. Give thought to the transition
from the sermon, the exact wording you will use and the precise nature of what
you are asking people to do. (I recall hearing of a visiting preacher who spoke
night after night on patriotism and anti-communism. After several messages, he
complained to the pastor, I dont understand why were not getting any
response. The host minister said, What do you want them to dojoin the
FBI?)
4. Work with the worship leader/song leader and/or musicians to
accomplish the transition smoothly and effectively. If the minister ends
the sermon with a prayer, then asks the congregation to stand and encourages
people to come to the altar, the music should begin seamlessly, easily,
naturally, without a long pause, without abruptness, without anything to disrupt
the mood.
In most cases, I prefer to have the congregation standing with heads bowed in
prayer. Any singing is done by the choir or ensemble or the worship leader.
Often, we have no singing, just the instruments playing. I want the people
focused on the Lord and this invitation, not worrying about the next line to sing.
5. When you use a hymn, it should be familiar to the people. Just as the
pastor does not want to be introducing new ideas as he makes his plea, the
words of the hymn should not be unfamiliar and draw the minds of the people
away from the business at hand, which is responding to Gods call.
6. Even though the plea is specific to whatever you preached that day,
it should always include a general invitation for people to come to the
altar area for their own personal prayer. They do not have to speak to a
minister for this. Pastors should make sure the front of the sanctuary has
comfortable places for people to kneel and pray, that church furniture is not
blocking the way and that there is adequate space for them to kneel without
being crowded. My church has kneeling cushions across the front of the church
where people can kneel and pray. I love that it makes a statement: We expect
people to pray in this church!
7. The length of the invitation depends. Two primary considerations here
are the congregations endurance/patience and the people praying at the altar.
If this period goes on too long, people get tired. If that happens only
occasionally, the congregation is accepting, particularly if people are
responding. But if the pastor belabors the invitation Sunday after Sunday with
few results, most congregations come to resent it. Likewise, when people come
to the altar to pray, they should not be rushed but encouraged to stay as long
as they wish.
8. I encourage church leaders to make coming to the altar and praying
a regular practice. Its good for them, of course, but this also encourages
others to come. Jesus nailed this for us: My house shall be called a house of
prayer (Luke 19:46).
In churches where no one has walked the aisle in months, only the most
courageous soul will be the first to do so. But where people are getting up and
walking to the altar every service to kneel and pray, those making significant
decisions find doing so much easier.
9. Pastors will want to have working sessions with everyone involved in
the service in order to plan the invitation, know how to deal with
responders, handle interruptions and understand the pastors hand
signals. Hand signals? Yes, or some other nonverbal sign he may send to
others involved, directing one minister to someone he might have overlooked,
telling the worship leader hes ready to end the hymn, that sort of thing.
10. Pastors do well to keep reminding themselves that they are dealing
with the fine china of peoples eternal lives here. This is not about your
sermon, not an affirmation of your ministry and nothing that happens here is
about you. Its about people coming to Jesus Christ and living for Him.
Whatever you can do to assist them in this, you will want to do it and do it well.
A couple of dangers about public invitations:
1. Public altar calls can be abused by manipulative leaders. Shoppers
know about impulse buying. Stores situate impulse-items near the checkout and
the bread and milk in the back of the store.
I fear there are those who have come under the sway of a high-powered
preacher and gone forward during the invitation and then regretted it the
moment they walked outside into the light of day. We must guard against this.
Once, before I began pastoring, our church had an evangelist whose invitation
consumed a good 15 minutes every night and consisted of the same sequence:
If you want the Lord in your life, raise your hand. If you raised your hand,
look up at me. If you are looking up at me, stand to your feet. All of you
who are standing, walk to the front. (I guarantee you after a night or two of
this, people learned not to raise their hands to this guy!)
2. There is not enough time during the typical altar call to deal with
people sufficiently. Thats why churches should have trained counselors ready
to help those who respond and in many cases to invite them into an adjoining
room for an unhurried visit.
3. The minister must do nothing inappropriate as he transitions into the
invitation. The most common mistake that Ive noticed is telling a joke or
delivering a humorous line that just occurred to him. He must learn to squelch
that if he wants people to come to Christ.
All thoughts and eyes and words should be about this time of commitment. This
is no time for the pastor to tell the custodian to turn down the thermostat, the
youth minister to come to the front and assist him, or someone to see to the
crying baby in the balcony. Tough it out, preacher. Lives hang in the balance.
I hope someone will find this helpful.