Preach Em Into the Altars...then Run Em Off

[Neck]

Originally Posted by chseeads

This is something that I personally find to be a disturbing 'trend.'

I find it done in various churches round about, some more than others.

Everybody always talks about, testifies about, sings about, and preaches about wanting to see souls saved, people deepen their walk with God, Zion to travail, saints and sinners alike to seek the face of Almighty God. Preachers preach for a response of people flooding the altars when they give an altar call. They stress the importance of prayer, of praying until God moves, of getting what you need from the Lord.

And then what...A few minutes pass. Most people are back up and back to their seats. And a few people are still praying.

So rather than anybody join in and pray with the few that appear to be willing to do more than "lay me down to sleep...," the music is cut, somebody gets up and makes some announcements, and dismisses the service, often making a statement that those that are praying can continue to pray, etc.

That gets on my nerves.

Everybody has a different feeling/opinion and so on, and different people would be affected in different ways by that... But I find that cutting the service off basically kills it for people that are actually trying to pray. Rather than be willing to keep praying, they feel like they should quit. Especially for someone that's seeking the Holy Ghost or someone that's not been to an altar of prayer before, how are they supposed to feel after all this preaching has gone on that prayer is so important and they need to seek God, and then when they're trying to, the service is dismissed out from under them and everybody begins to mingle and talk and laugh?

Sure, I understand that people have to go home and get to bed and get up for work......after they talk for a half hour in the sanctuary and an hour and a half at the restaurant of course.

If somebody needs to go, the doors are usually not locked and if they are done praying, they should be welcome to leave. But I think if people really mean what they say, they should get down to business instead of preaching about the Sweet Hour of Prayer then only allowing enough time for a microwave blessing.

People are weird, and that's just something that gets on my nerves.

It has been going on for years. my home church for 27 years at one point has 11K baptized in over 35 years.

But never reached the 1500 number in church.

What happened to the other 10K.

They filled up the local AOG church which has multiple services and a new 3K seat church...