“Extending the Invitation”
C. Philip Slate
Periodically, preachers in the USA find themselves in a bind when they feel compelled, for whatever reasons, to “extend the invitation” when there is no natural connection between sermon content and an appeal to respond to Jesus. This article is a response to the felt awkwardness of this practice and offers a few alternatives.
Why should preachers feel compelled to “extend the invitation” every time they preach? Scripture does not enjoin the practice. In most of the churches I have visited in more than thirty countries, extending the invitation at the end of the sermon is exceptional, even in situations where churches are growing rapidly. Indeed, in the 1950s our workers in Italy found the practice of “extending the invitation” even counter-productive to their evangelistic efforts. Some Italians would respond when all they wanted to do was inquire. So, our workers created an alternative means of responding, a practice I need not detail here.
Tom Olbricht has shown how the “invitation” practiced among North American churches of Christ began as a counter-practice to the altar call in 19th century heavily Calvinistic Protestant revivalism, a call with the accompanying quest to ascertain or secure one’s election.[1] There is nothing about the biblical preaching event, however, that requires the “extension” of a formal invitation each time preaching takes place, regardless of content. One may exhort and persuade without the uninterrupted, and often awkward, move from sermon to exhortation.
In a real sense, the invitation was given by Jesus (Matt. 11:28–30), and all preachers can do is remind people of that invitation and exhort them to respond to Jesus in appropriate ways. In that sense we do not extend the invitation. In some cases our 19th century North American evangelistic efforts involved two men in the preaching event: one was chiefly a teacher while the other was an exhorter who urged people to act on what they had been taught. There was nothing wrong with that practice in a specifically evangelistic situation.
That the biblical message clearly demands responses is not the issue. Hearers were often urged to respond by repenting with accompanying fruits (Matt. 3:8; Acts 2:38), turning to the Lord (Acts 3:19), believing (trusting) (Acts 16:31), and so forth. Even when the sermon is not specifically about the gospel, on a given Sunday someone may want the opportunity to obey Christ in baptism for reasons other than the sermon just preached. The same may be the case for one who wishes to make known her or his repentance of some wrong, to apologize for behavior, to announce the decision to return to the Lord’s way of life, or to request congregational prayer for some threat or forthcoming event. How can those opportunities be provided? In many of our African American churches members simply remain standing after the post-sermon song, and the preacher asks each one what is on her or his heart—a good practice but difficult to do in a very large assembly.
Given the decision to provide opportunities for people to respond publicly in assemblies, there are several ways of making it know without employing strained connections between sermon and exhortation. Obviously, when the sermon is evangelistic it is easy to move into a call for response, a traditional USA practice among several churches. (1) Alternatively, however, one may state at the beginning of the sermon that at the end of the message a song will be sung as an appeal to people to respond publicly to Christ by coming to the front, if that is appropriate for them. Non-members and new contacts may not know what the post-sermon song means! Check it out for yourself. In fact, “extending the invitation” is strange terminology to those who have not been initiated to our phrases and descriptions.
The preacher could finish the non-evangelistic sermon and (2) simply state that he has finished the sermon planned for the occasion, and then say something like, “Now, please, give me a minute or so to make an appeal for anyone who may need to respond publicly to Christ today.” Another way of making the transition is to (3) finish the sermon with an appropriate prayer and then take a minute or two to make a meaningful appeal. (4) One may also transition from sermon to exhortation by making a psychological break, a planned pause after the sermon, and then exhort people to respond to Christ. (5) Additionally, one could finish the sermon with a song/hymn as part of the lesson, and then appeal for responses. (6) Another alternative to the traditional invitation involves the preacher’s mentioning the availability of himself or the elders (perhaps standing at the back) to talk about spiritual needs people want to discuss. Of course, this can be done along with an appeal to come to the front. (7) Finally, sermon over, the preacher may say simply but meaningfully, “Now, does anyone here today desire to become a Christian? Does anyone at this time want to confess some wrong or ask us to pray for a particular need? If so, please indicate it by raising your hand, standing up, or speaking. Let us know.
These are my suggestions. It may be useful to read how an Evangelical writer treated the subject.[2]
Whether or not to have a formal appeal for response depends largely on the way one sees the function of a sermon and a specific assembly. Interestingly, when theologically conservative James Kennedy was with the conservative Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida, it became in the 1960s the first Presbyterian church in the USA to have over three hundred conversions in one year. Kennedy never preached an evangelistic sermon to the church! Rather, on Sunday mornings he informed and encouraged the church. At one point he had trained 180 men and women to get out in the community and evangelize. That is how they had so many conversions. Waiving here our differences on the conversion processes, the point is that they did not use their Sunday assembly to evangelize but to minister to those already evangelized—and lost nothing evangelistically in the process.
It is useful for each church to decide whether it wants to be primarily a “front door” church (attract and win people by staging Sunday assemblies) or a “side door” church (does its evangelizing primarily away from the building and reserves the Sunday assembly more exclusively for building up the saints). Often churches try to do too many things in the limited time of the Sunday assembly. It is useful to reconsider what the “assembly” texts in the New Testament indicate about the practice of the early church. Settling on a manageable number of well-planned biblically required activities can sharpen the outcomes of assemblies, and sermons. Whatever a church’s leadership decides about these matters needs to be carefully explained to the congregation so it can participate in whatever approach is taken. It helps brothers and sisters to have a clear view of what they are trying to accomplish “when we [they] come together.”
Slightly modified article originally published by the Gospel Advocate in April, 2018.
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(1) Thomas Olbricht, “The Invitation: A Historical Survey,” Restoration Quarterly (5:1), which is online at the RQ website.
(2) Larry K. Weeden, “Effective Invitations,” Leadership. 1988 (9:4):124-28.
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