"You Ain't Him!"

Through the years I have knelt at a lot of altars.  Being in a Methodist Church since age seven has meant that there was always one somewhere around.  My first trips to the kneeling place was in a small country church where my father is buried.  I was just a boy then trying to figure out things that were far beyond my years.  Along the way to where I am now, I have knelt at some altars that held several times the number that could have knelt at that first country church.  The length or ornateness of the altar never mattered.  Kneeling people are not usually looking at their surroundings, but in their hearts.

 

I am one of those preachers that always believed more altar time would be a good thing for the church.  As I moved through the years of ministry, preachers started getting shy about preaching invitational sermons and extending "altar calls."  Maybe the assumption was that there were no longer any people in the church who needed to accept Jesus as Savior.  Or, maybe folks were getting what they needed from the counselor's office and the self-help books.  It has always seemed to me that important spiritual work gets done at altars, but if no one invites, getting there becomes too difficult a journey for many to make.

 

It may be too simplistic to say that more trips to the altar would lessen some of the struggles of the church today.  But, then again, more praying is certainly not something that is going to do harm to the church.  One thing is certain.  Our perspective is different when we are viewing the world from our knees.  It also puts us in a position to better realize the truth of what an old friend loved to say to those of us who gathered for a weekly dose of honesty.  "There is a God and you ain't Him!"