Knowra Altar call Altar call An invitation during some Protestant worship services for people to come forward, often to pray, profess faith, or make a public religious commitment. It is a practice rather than a sacrament.
Evangelistic invitation : A public appeal urging people to respond to a religious message, often by professing faith or seeking conversion. The altar call is a familiar form of this appeal, often delivered at a service’s close.
Charles Grandison Finney : A nineteenth-century American revivalist and Presbyterian minister known for organizing large evangelistic campaigns. Finney promoted public responses to preaching through practices associated with the altar call’s development.
Call to the altar : A phrase for an invitation to approach an altar, used in some Christian traditions for prayer or devotion. It can describe a broader devotional practice, while “altar call” usually names an evangelical conversion invitation.
Conversion (religion) : A change in religious affiliation, belief, or commitment, sometimes involving a new religious identity. The altar call presents conversion as an event that can be publicly acknowledged.
Christian revival : A period of heightened religious commitment and activity, often marked by preaching, conversion appeals, and renewed worship. Revival meetings helped make the public conversion invitation a recognizable worship practice.
New Measures : Nineteenth-century revival techniques, including the anxious bench, intended to prompt immediate religious decisions. The altar call developed amid these deliberate methods for making conversion appeals public.
Decision theology : A theological emphasis on a person’s conscious decision to accept Christian faith or respond to the gospel. The altar call often expresses this emphasis by inviting an immediate, visible decision.
Assurance of salvation : Confidence that one is reconciled to God and will receive salvation, grounded differently across Christian traditions. A public response may be remembered as evidence of commitment, though it does not settle every tradition’s account of assurance.
Public profession of faith : An outward declaration that a person holds or embraces a religious faith. Coming forward can make a personal commitment visible to the congregation.
Anxious bench : A seat used in some nineteenth-century revival meetings for people under religious conviction to receive prayer and counsel. It was a predecessor to inviting respondents to come forward during a service.
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