A Clear Invitation
Imagine the confusion. You're attending a church service for the first time. After the sermon, the minister hastily "offers an invitation" to "come forward and accept Jesus," and then people begin singing. If you're not familiar with revivalistic tradition, chances are you don't know what's happening. Asking people to leave their seats before the program is over, walk to the front of the auditorium, and talk to a stranger about spiritual things is alien to anyone accustomed to sitting passively through movies and concerts. That's why Gordon MacDonald, at Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, explains what an invitation is before he starts his sermon. "Whenever I'm planning to have people respond publicly," he says, "I tell them, 'In about 30 minutes, I'm going to ask you to do something unusual. I'll be asking you to make a decision based on the information in today's sermon. At the end of the service, I'll invite you to come and kneel on the steps of the platform as a sign of God working in your life.' "I want them to get ready, and this takes a lot of the shock, the fear, and the worry out of the experience. I explain what I want them to do as if I'd never seen an altar call before," he says. MacDonald does this perhaps 12 times a year, usually as a public sign of conversion, and he's been doing it this way for 10 years. "We've found that preparing people beforehand brings a greater response," he says. "People think about what they must do throughout the sermon, and when they do come forward, they mean business."
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