What Does "Come Into My Heart" Mean Anyway?

The church norm for the past 20+ years has been to have an "altar call" at the end of services where non-believers are asked to raise their hands if they want to "accept Christ." If they raise their hands, they are led in a call-and-response prayer where they copy the Pastor's lead to "ask Jesus to come into their hearts."  

Many people consider this a pivotal part of the service and get frustrated if the Pastor doesn't include this in every gathering. The number of people who raise their hands gets promoted; everyone considers it a great service if many people raise their hands. The success of the pastor or service is quantified by how many people raise their hands.

This has just been a normal part of my up-bringing and faith, but just recently I took a second look...I considered it instead of just accepting it as a norm. And I'm no longer sure if this is a healthy way to quantify the presence of the Holy Spirit, or the success of a Pastor, or even the salvation of a new believer.

I don't think conversion ususally happens in an instant. I in no way doubt it can, but I don't think it's the norm. I also wonder if saying a simple prayer, that's likely not even genuine or understood because it's just a copy of the Pastor's words, is the gateway to salvation.

I don't know if it's right to tell the person who's just prayed the call-and-response prayer that it was their official moment of conversion to Christ and to tell the congregation that if they miss the prayer, they'll completely missed their opportunity to know Christ. What's worse is when Pastors combine Luke 9:26 ("if you are ashamed of me...") into this tradition and tell the congregation that if they didn't stand up boldly in front of everyone to accept Christ through this prayer, that they are too shy to be God's child and thus they're not good enough to become one of God's beloved as well. I think this is a huge misunderstanding and misrepresentation of coming to know Christ and receiving His beautiful, unconditional salvation!

To begin with, this tradition immediately places emphasis on working for one's salvation. In the very introduction to church life and the Body of Christ, we're already misguiding people into thinking that they need to earn salvation. Pray a prayer and come forward or stand up boldy....or miss your chance to know Christ (until next Sunday).

Secondly, I don't think conversions usually happen in a single moment. I think conversion is, more often than not, a journey...a journey where the Holy Spirit begins working in our hearts and draws us to Himself gradually...peeling back layer after layer, wall after wall, concern after concern, and defense after defense...until we're open to fully believe and submit to our amazing God who works in us. I think this conversion journey is longer for some than others...taking years, a lifetime or just a few months or days. But I honestly don't believe that it all occurs immediately during the span of a call-and-response prayer.

Pastor Melissa Scott, a renouned theological scholar, has pointed out that the word in our English Bibles, "repent," is not a perfect match for the original Greek/Hebrew word used in Scripture. She says that "repent" is just the best English description, but really the pure Greek word for repent is actually more along the lines of "to change one's mind," "to decide," or "to have a new perspective." In other words, "getting saved" doesn't come about from a call-and-response prayer, but from realizing the truth about God and making that personal connection to self. I believe that to become a Christian doesn't require an official, one-time prayer but rather a conscious understanding and acknowledgement of God, self, sin and etc. Conversion is the process where, after a time of working through doubts and false truths, one realizes that the Gospel story makes sense, that it resounds with oneself and that one starts to change their perspective and habits and decides to live according to this new found Truth.

I do believe that a sermon in a church service can bring a person to consciously acknowledge the Truth of the Gospel because it resounds within them, but I believe that the process of conversion probably began long before ever entering the church doors for that service. The church gathering is likely just a connection point between the things God has been doing in their lives and understanding it was Christ that was prompting them all along. Again, I'm not saying an instant conversion never happens, I believe it does happen, I just don't think it's the norm.

I think it is right that Pastors bringing people to understand the conversion that is occuring in people's hearts, minds and souls. But I don't think the way we have done it for the past 20+ years is a good witness to what Christ is doing in people's hearts. I don't think the norms of our salvation alter calls are representing Christ correctly but rather misinterpretting the process of the Holy Spirit in people's lives.

This is perhaps why often we see "repeats" in the salvation prayer...where the same person "converts" over and over again at church. I think this is because we have taught them incorrectly what it means to be saved and how their conversion to Christ occurs. Salvation isn't a moment in life where a sinner prays and then instantly stops being him/herself. This romantic idea that during the call-and-response salvation prayer a person no longer finds need for old habits is not right. New believers have to deal with resisting temptations and developing healthy habits....which even old believers have to do. To understand the true word of "repent" would mean that they "decide to change their mind" so they work through their old habits and old mindsets to recreate them in the light of the Gospel and pursue a new understanding of life with new habits. Romans 6 commands us to not let sin reign within us...in other words, acknowledging that sin isn't just removed miraculously at salvation but it's a discipline we must engage in.

But our tradition of being saved in a instant often gives this idea that the new believer should be different, feel something new in an instant, never be the same again after the prayer. When in truth, it's a process, it's a journey. God doesn't come into our lives only when we're perfect...but the Holy Spirit was actually working in our lives a long time prior to the church service...when we first started being discontent with the lives we were living. Without realizing it was the Holy Spirit back then. Church services and etc just help us to see that it was Him leading us to Himself all along. The church service experience where people "get saved" is really just a fruition of the journey that Christ began in them quite some time before the simple salvation prayer that they prayed.