A Sacristan at the Altar Call: It's More catholic Than We Think.

Just as a heads up, the words sacristan and altar Call don't tend to run in the same circles. Sacristans can be found at those churches that spend way too much time making sure the linens are starched and the chalice is shined, and altar calls tend to happen at churches where the bread and grape juice come in individually packaged portions and the "remembrance" part of the Last Supper text gets played up quite a bit.

God bless Candler for putting us in the same room.

I'll make a confession and say that I have made the altar call the butt of many a joke. I remember going to a "youth revival" back in my hometown and following the rows of folks up to the altar. There was quite a bit of shouting and crying and praying, and I just stood there. I got nothing. At all.

I can't remember ever actively participating in an altar call after that. I'd just sit and watch. Which is exactly what I did this past Thursday, except this time something clicked.

No, I didn't go down to the altar, but, I'm saying this as someone who now has a great interest in liturgy. Not just big L Liturgy, but "the works of the people" in whatever form that takes. I've come to the conclusion that "free church traditions" are a lot more liturgical than they think. Just in interesting ways.

I'm going to pose a thesis here. I guess more of a hypothesis. A thesis implies actual research, but none the less, I believe that the altar call addresses the universal Christian impulse to interact with the divine in the same way that the Eucharist allows us to.

All my Anglican friends can now fall into convulsions, but hear me out with this. In those traditions where there is no tangible (spiritually, not empirically) benefit to receiving the Eucharist, where the Eucharist is construed as nothing more than a "feast of remembrance" or a "love feast" the altar call comes in to fill that gap of "offering divine benefit" as Luke Timothy Johnson phrases it in Among the Gentiles. While I don't claim to know what exactly happens when we receive the Eucharist I think "the forgiveness of sins" is the solid scriptural bet. That phrase features prominently in the Words of Institution, and the Methodist Great Thanksgiving offers words at the fraction that intensify this idea. The other claim that I would make about the Eucharist is that it puts us in the immediate presence of Christ in the form of a meal. The great marriage banquet is sitting immediately before us. We are called there briefly, and sent out again to minister. This is as close as we're going to get to the Holy of Holies.

What I saw on Thursday was that same kind of experience. It was Eucharistic. It spoke much more to what I think the Eucharist offers than a "feast of remembrance" does. (Or is meant to do, for that matter.)

I don't say this to belittle the feast of remembrance. I personally don't find it theologically robust, but I don't have to. What I do want to say is that I think the "remembrance" traditions open themselves up to embracing the altar call in ways that are truly Eucharistic. And that makes the altar call a lot more catholic than we think...