Evangelism without the call to "come forward"«

A few years ago, I preached my first sermon as pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church. Before the service, a music minister approached me with a question. He wanted to know how I would conduct the call to «come forward.».

This question puzzled me. I had been to Mount Vernon three times before this Sunday morning meeting and had never seen a call to the front. I assumed the church had long since abandoned this practice. I was wrong.

It turned out that my church had a long tradition of concluding its services with a call to come forward to join the church, renew one’s life before the Lord, or make a public profession of faith. The three Sundays I attended were exceptions to the rule! Moreover, many church members viewed such a call as the primary way the church reached out to people who did not yet know the Lord. They identified the call to «come forward» with evangelism.

WHY IS IT NOT WORTH IT TO MAKE A CALL TO "COME FORWARD"?

I am sure that many who make such appeals have the best of intentions. In the 1990s, I attended a church where the pastor would conclude his service by asking everyone in the audience to close their eyes and bow their heads. He would then invite anyone who wanted to receive Christ to raise their hand and look up at the pulpit. For about thirty seconds, the pastor would scan the audience, noticing the raised hands, and in a calm, reassuring voice, he would say, «Yes, brother, I see you. Okay, sister, amen,» and so on. I believe that this pastor had the best of intentions for these people.

But I am convinced that such an appeal does more harm than good. The practice of giving people immediate assurance of their salvation—without proper testing of the sincerity of their words—seems to be reckless, to say the least, and blatantly dangerous, at worst. It is reckless because the pastor cannot know the person well enough to confirm him as a Christian. It is dangerous because it substitutes the thorny path and narrow gate through which the Lord bids us enter (Mark 8:34; Matt. 7:14) for the easy path and wide gate made by man.

With the best of intentions, by using the call to «come forward,» we can give many unsaved people a false confidence that they truly know Jesus.

But that’s not all. The call to «come forward» tends to divert the congregation’s attention in the wrong direction. After the Word has been preached, church members and guests should focus on examining their own hearts. Each person should pay serious attention to how the message calls him or her to respond. However, the call to «come forward» ironically has the opposite effect. Instead of encouraging self-examination, it leads to examination of those around them. People start looking around, wondering who will come forward. And if no one moves, the question arises: Did the pastor not say everything he needed to say? Or, perhaps worse, has God left us for this day?

These are just a few reasons why I believe using the call to «come forward» for evangelism is reckless.

HOW TO EVANGELIZE WITHOUT A CALL TO "COMMENCE"«

How should a pastor who rejects the call to «go ahead» think about evangelism in public worship? In other words, what should a worship service filled with genuine evangelistic zeal look like? Here are seven principles I strive to follow when conducting services:

1. Be Sincere. While there is nothing more important to a preacher than faithfulness to biblical truth, sincerity should be secondary. God uses men whose hearts are filled with the tragedy of sin and the reality of salvation. Until the doctrine of God's wonderful grace is rooted in the preacher's soul, it will never catch fire on his lips.
2. Be clear about the Gospel. Every passage of Scripture is a gospel text. The book of Esther does not mention God by name, but His work is traced on every page. A pastor who wants to see sinners saved will faithfully teach the Bible, showing his flock how the person and work of Christ are the essence of each text.
3. Call people to repentance and faith. Every sermon should have a place for a call to sinners to find hope in Christ. So often I hear sermons that end with calls to commitment, risk, and faithfulness, but without any call to Christ himself. The preacher must carefully and passionately call his hearers to repentance and faith in the Good News, to surrender their lives to Christ the King.
4. Create opportunities for follow-up conversations. When I preach the gospel, I want unbelievers to know that I am available to talk more about the faith I have just shared. So after the service, I try to be available to talk about the gospel and its implications. Other pastors I have spoken to invite people into a special room after the service for prayer or conversation. Charles Spurgeon devoted every Tuesday afternoon to counseling unbelievers and new converts. [2] However you choose to organize this process, be sure to give people the opportunity to talk in person about what you have just preached.
5. Invite to evangelistic groups (faith studies). I usually tell those who are interested that they are invited to join a short, simple study that explains the basics of the Christian faith. The course I use is called Christianity Explained, a six-week course on the Gospel of Mark published by the Good Book Company. I find it an extremely valuable introduction to the Gospel. You can choose the material that will be useful for you to make this study as effective as possible.
6. Place a strong emphasis on baptism. Of course, baptism is already a big event. We should realize that every baptism is an opportunity to show the church that God is at work building His church. At Mount Vernon Church, we ask every baptism candidate to share their testimony with the congregation. I have never required it, but I have never had anyone refuse. These new Christians are eager to testify of God’s grace, and they encourage those who seek to question their own response to the gospel.
7. Pray. And finally, pray. In the pastor’s prayer and even in the closing prayer, I regularly pray that people will repent and believe the Gospel. I pray that they will surrender their lives to Christ, overcoming whatever obstacles they think stand in their way. I pray that God will reveal Himself, drawing sinners to Himself on this very day.

As you can see, I do not preach a «come forward» call in the church where I serve. But I do plead every Sunday for sinners to come to Christ. Let us strive to see the saints in our churches encouraged by the Gospel and unbelievers convinced of the need for repentance and faith in the Good News of God.

[1] For a detailed discussion of the dangers of the call to «come forward,» see Errol Hulse, The Great Invitation: An Exploration of the Use of the Call to «come forward» in Evangelism (Audoban Press, 2006) and D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Zondervan, 2011), chapter 14.

[2] Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Banner of Truth, 1985), 80.