There was an altar call

There was an altar call. Not every Sunday, but most weeks. During the special services that were held once a year, there was an altar call every night.

Sometimes no one came, sometimes one or two, sometimes the pews emptied and the kneelers stacked up, rows deep, in front of the altar. The altar was always open -- Pastor Mark made a point of reminding us of that.

I grew up in churches with altars, and they didn't seem like a show for fellow worshippers or a manipulation tool in the hands of power hungry pastors. They seemed like an opportunity to physically engage with what was going on in your heart.

I don't remember the first time I went to the altar, but I know what it felt like in those early years when I received my own altar call: my heart would pound, heat would flood into my face, and I would cling to the safety of my seat until the urge to rise became unbearable. Then I would slip past the knees of my family, lining the pew between me and the aisle, walk to the front of the church between banks of other worshipers, and at last arrive at my destination. The discomfort and embarrassment dissolved as soon as I knelt on the rough carpet, leaned my forearms on the cool, smooth polish of the wood. The humble position magnified my rightful place before Almighty God. The act of obedience reinforced my submission to Him. Maybe I was responding to hearing the Word preached; maybe I was lifting up a burden of my heart to God; maybe I was repenting. There were usually tears, and always relief and joy at being fully and consciously in the presence, in the very arms, of God. Sometimes an arm would land across my shoulders -- someone from my family, or my larger church family coming alongside me.

From the time I was ten until the summer I turned twenty-five, I attended Pastor Mark's church, my growing spiritual consciousness shaped by the altars Jim Parker built. Each Sunday morning we hauled them out of the trailer into the school cafeteria where we met. I've been away almost six years now, and last Sunday I attended a farewell for Pastor Mark as he, too, moves on from that church. "The altar is like God's lap," Pastor Mark used to say. A paradoxical place where the reality of an incredibly intimate relationship with the absolute God of the universe came to light. I'm grateful for that altar that provided a framework for my newly developing relationship with God, and for the altar before the throne of grace, always open to a humble, obedient heart.