It is also my opinion that the state of average local evangelical churches, with all their unregenerate members, is a result of the “sinner’s prayer” and the typical Baptist alter call. (Though the latter is rarely a problem anymore).

We must learn discipleship and evangelism. It seems to me that more conversions need to happen outside the church than within it. But we invite folks to church because we have no clue how to invite them to Christ. (Tracts not included).

kmichael

I am not sure how you made it here either, but I am glad you did!

Your question is a pertinent one. What are we doing as individual Christians to help them walk with Jesus? That really was the heart of my post; how to get back to personal discipleship. Though I sincerely believe there is nothing wrong with using the Sinner’s Prayer as a tool, it is a means to an end and not the end in and of itself.

Many of us think that once a person has ‘prayed the prayer’ that our duty to that person has come to an end. Actually it has just started! I am convinced that where the modern American church has dropped the ball is in cultivating authentic disciples an we cannot do that without personal involvement.

You are so correct, that we can change that trend, and as that great theologian (insert tongue in cheek here) Michael Jackson said, “I’m starting with the man in the mirror.”

Thanks again for dropping in, Janna. I hope you come back to see us again.

The church I “grew up” in spiritually no longer emphasizes discipleship but instead small group ministry (which I am not saying is bad at all) where baby Christians teach “bible studies” from books rather than from the bible. The attention to “felt needs” draws people into this church, they learn about salvation & pray the prayer, but go relatively nowhere from there. But I digress…

Somehow, we grounded Christians need to get the fire back and start teaching/discipling again in spite of what the trends in our churches are. We can change this trend, one person at a time as we instill a love for God’s word into people. It all starts with us.

I thank you for pointing out perhaps a lack of clarity on my part. To be clear what I may have implied should have been specifically stated.

Thank you very much

Excellent thoughts. Your pattern, at first, seems to me to run into a little bit of trouble in Acts 8:27-40. However, then I read vs. 35 carefully, and find that Philip “preached unto him Jesus”, which is what you seem to imply should correctly happen before “the sinners prayer”.

I think this discussion is straying a bit from discipleship into “salvation matters”, but here’s my personal concern – I think we’ve gotten to this point because of a very unscriptural approach to “witnessing”. We want to hand somebody a tract, have them turn to the last page, ask them if they want to accept Christ, and three minutes later walk away with “a new convert, a soul saved from damnation” so that we can make a report to the Visitation Committee and feel really good about ourselves for a week. Never once in this process were we really concerned about the soul of the individual, just whether or not they pray the prayer that the tract requires.

This lazy witnessing approach – highly touted by MANY independent fundamental pre-millenial Baptist churches in my area – leads, in my humble opinion, to many incomplete conversions because those supposed “converts” are never discipled in any way. In fact, they may be FURTHER isolated from God than they were before because of wrong expectations, as Jerry mentions.

It’s also, in my opinion, one of the dangers of improperly counseling very young children who are feeling the tug of the Holy Spirit.

Absolutely a nugget is the order of introduction: “God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit”.

And what has happened in our world as disrepect toward the El Elyon, God Most High, is paramount to why we have people so apathetic towards the gospel message. They sneer instead of cheer and question instead of trust. Thank you for you most thoughtful comment. selahV

Within the parameters discussed here, I probably agree with all of you in some way. But there is a greater problem with the sinner’s prayer than is part of the normal arguments for or against it.

There was a structure and chronology of the introduction of God to man. First He created man, then He gave him a choice that proved to be a bad one. Then He went about setting the rules and creating a history of His very own people in their roller coaster ride with those rules across thousands of years.

None of that happened by accident. The manner in which God introduced himself to man, established the rules, the penalty for breaking those rules and the blood sacrifice of animals that brought about repentance and forgiveness is not an insignicant sequence. He took several thousand years to do all of that before Jesus came and in sequence.

And who did Jesus come to, people who had a basis to believe that God was God, that his rules were the rules, that there was a price to pay for breaking those rules, and a sacrifice made for restoring the relationship. And a long history of demonstrating all of that was true among the Hebrews.

What I contend as much as I agree with all of you who decry and rightfully so the lack of discipling and instructing that we should do, is that we ask people to pray the sinner’s prayer as the first step in their introduction to God. We do it all the time. We tell folks that Jesus is the answer to their problem when we have failed to establish the most basic of prequisites. People who do not believe that God is God, do not believe there are absolute rules, do not believe that there is sin and that a price a big one must be paid for those sins, are not prepared to pray the sinners prayer and many of them will say those words expecting some mystical event to happen. It doesn’t. Without the recognition of our own helplessness and the acknowledgement of our need for something far greater than ourselves, and the need to have someone who can forgive us of the things of which we cannot forgive ourselves, and the ultimate conclusion in that process that there is a God and we have broken his rules, there will be no conviction of sin and predictably a pallid and temporary response to the sinner’s prayer.

A hundred years ago we had a society in this country which accepted the fact there was a God even believed they were sinners. When they came through our doors they had at least some basic understanding of who God was and what He was about. We have educated all of that out of our entire population with everything about our lives neatly packed away through the explanations from scientists, secular anthropologists, biological ethicists, atheistic historians in our classrooms and in our living rooms.

The problem with the sinner’s prayer isn’t that it is wrong. It is that it is not the first step towards God, it’s the third or fourth. Without those prior steps being taken, the sinner’s prayer is little more than the words people scoff at them to be.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy spirit were introduced to us in that order. I don’t think that’s a mistake but rather the greatest exercise of logical progression that exists. And for me the creator of logic, wasn’t some pointy headed philosopher, it was God the Father Himself.

In the right sequence and with the right prerequisites, there is nothing wrong with the sinner’s prayer. Outside those prerequisites,it is more often than not the repeated words of empty rote they are so often accused of being.

Though I am not a Calvinist, we would all do very well with a strong dose, a very strong dose of their emphasis on the Sovereignty of God.

Jerry Grace

Thank you Jesus for dying for me in my place on the cross for my sins. Thank you for redeeming my soul because nothing I do or can do will ever make it possible for me to live in heaven with You. You and You alone are my Salvation and today I want to commit myself to you to live as You want me to and to follow You all the days of my life. Amen.
selahV