Quote:
Originally Posted by jediwill83
Bro Billy Cole once said,"Some might say...well I got the HolyGhost down at the altar.....well you got it the Methodist way."
The point he wss making is that going to the "alter" as we know it began commonly in the Methodist movement which was a far cry from what it is today.
|
The Methodists had what was known as "The Penitent Form" or "Mourner's Bench", which was usually a front row pew or some planks set on blocks. The preacher would exhort those who wanted to be prayed for to come forward, the workers and saints would gather around, and begin praying for them that faith would arise. The goal was for the mourner (person under conviction) to eventually get faith, surrender to the Lord, and "come through shoutin" with a testimony of victory.
Charles Finney in the 1830s developed a variation called the Anxious Seat, a chair, series of chairs, or front row pew set up for those "anxious about the condition of their souls". The anxious would be asked about why they were anxious, asked about their spiritual state, exhorted to exercise faith, were given some basic Biblical corrections to errors they might be holding on to, exhorted to repent of all errors and sins, and then told to pray, while others prayed for them to exercise faith and be saved, sanctified, or whatever the need was.
These methods were further developed on the frontier as an evangelistic "point of decision", especially among Holiness groups. Holiness groups that became Pentecostal carried on the tradition. Also, baptists and evangelicals also borrowed the method, and it has spread to most Protestant circles except mainline churches like the Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.
Threaded Mode
