Raise Your Hand, Lift Your Head, and Let Your Eyes Meet Mine
I love giving people the opportunity to commit their hearts and lives to Jesus. It’s safe to say that over the last 30+ years of pastoral ministry, I have had the great honor of leading thousands of people into a public profession of trust in the Lord. Those “altar calls” have happened in a myriad of ways. I ask people to raise their hands and wave at me, indicating a desire to get right with God. Other times, people are invited to come to the front – to “hit the sawdust trail,” as popularized by evangelists such as Dwight Moody and Billy Sunday. Billy Graham carried that forward with his “Just As I Am” invitations in stadiums and circus-like tents. Some preachers prefer to have their eyes open, while others like their eyes closed for privacy. I know ministers who count to three, asking folks to shoot their arms up high “on three.” Case in point: I recently watched a podcast conversation between Carl Lentz and his children. Carl, the former Hillsong pastor, had a high-profile failure in his marriage and ministry and is currently experiencing healing and restoration in broken areas of his life. Thank you, Lord, for your grace and mercy for us ALL.
In that conversation with his kids, Carl asked them if they could quote his altar call “script” verbatim. They could. Here it is:
“ONE: Jesus loves you; he died and rose again so you could have life. TWO: the Bible says right now is time for salvation. Don’t wait another day! THREE: lift your head all over this place. Shoot your hand up high. I see you. Yes. I see you. I see you, my brother. I see you. I see you, my sister.”
It got a hardy belly laugh from the entire Lentz family. I giggled, too, because I thought of how my own kids playful mock some of the things I do and say in church. Thankfully, my kids still love Jesus and His Church, and I understand the Lentz kids, too. Unfortunately, that’s increasingly not the case for many of this rising generation. They are seeing massive hypocrisy in the evangelical church in America. Perhaps Russell Moore is right: it needs an altar call.
Losing Our Religion was written in 2023, amid aftershocks from the 2016 and 2020 elections. It is just in time for the 2024 elections, in which we can fully expect, and have already seen, more of the same brouhaha. And at the center of it all seems to be the Evangelical Church…again. For starters, we’re not supposed to be at the center of it all. The Church has always been at its best when it’s in the margins. We get things messed up when we pridefully position ourselves in the middle of the cultural conversation.
I have, perhaps like you, watched ‘The Church’ lose its credibility, authority, identity, integrity, and stability. You are spot on with those chapter headings, Mr. Moore. In the pursuit of power, The Church keeps diminishing its witness. It’s like we’re selling our birthright for a bowl of stew. A stinking bowl of stew. Lentils. Broth. A few chunks of meat. We’re so “hungry” for power and position and willing to do “whatever it takes” in the short run to get it, even if it harms the Gospel in the long run.
And we just look downright foolish.
Case in point: all the social media buzz that went around after the attempted assassination of former President Trump. People were, again, calling him God’s anointed because the attempt didn’t end in a fatality. Or, they drew attention to the blood on his right ear and what it supposedly represents…(this is from widely circulated posts and memes)…
■ Right ear: The right ear represents hearing and obedience. In ancient times, it was considered the most important ear, as it was the ear that heard God’s words.
■ Blood: Blood represents life, sacrifice, and atonement. In this context, the blood is a symbol of purification and consecration.
■ Priestly consecration: In Leviticus 8, the blood is applied to the right ear of Aaron and his sons, consecrating them as priests. This act sets them apart as mediators between God and the people.
■ Purification: In Leviticus 14, the blood is applied to the right ear of the person being cleansed, symbolizing their purification and restoration to the community.
In case it is unclear, many people posted the above commentary about President Trump. Come on, people. Come on, evangelical church. This stuff has to stop. We look foolish. It’s time for the capital C church to “raise its hand, lift its head, and let its eyes meet mine.” It’s time for an altar call. Time to repent. And when we do, Jesus will be faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (see 1 John 1:9).
So, I ask:
Is the modern American evangelical church like that of Peter when it keeps “cutting off the right ear” of those we somehow deem to be against Jesus (see John 18:10)?
Is there blood on our proverbial hands from the private and public crusades we’ve been on, presumptively thinking we have God’s singular blessing?
Should the church repent and be consecrated for service unto King Jesus only for its blatant hand-holding with the world’s systems?
Have we wrongly been looking for an earthly priest to anoint rather than being consecrated unto the one and only final Prophet/Priest/King…JESUS?
Does The Church need a healthy dose of humility, and purification of its pursuit of power and position, to be restored to a good place of servant-like ministry within our communities and for the sake of a rising generation?
Yes, to all of the above.
Yes, my brother. Yes, my sister.
Yes, I see that hand.
Let’s Pray.
About the Author
John Fehlen
John Fehlen is currently the Lead Pastor of West Salem Foursquare Church. Prior to that he served at churches in Washington and California. A graduate of Life Pacific University in San Dimas, CA in Pastoral Ministry, and Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA with a Masters in Leadership and Spirituality. He and his wife Denise have four grown children and four grandchildren. John is the author of "Don't Give Up: Encouragement for Weary Souls in Challenging Times," a book for pastoral leaders, a children's book called "The Way I See You," and the forthcoming "Leave A Mark: The Jouney of Intentional Parenting." You can connect with John on Instagram (@johnfehlen) as well as at johnfehlen.substack.com.8 responses to “Raise Your Hand, Lift Your Head, and Let Your Eyes Meet Mine”
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Nice post, I like how you’ve woven a number of things together here, and yet still landed on the central message. It’s time for repentance because large swaths of the Church have lost credibility, authority, identity, integrity, and stability. As I was reading Moore’s book, I kept thinking, “this is a good book and I’m enjoying reading it, but I’m just so sorry that he needed to write it.”
I too am sorry it needed to be written and said. I feel that way with a number of the recent “take-down” books (of which Moore is not one of). There are a bunch of books and blogs coming from Ex-vangelicals. Much is nonsense, like a 38 year old man living in his Mom’s basement, blogging about how everyone has it wrong, but won’t lift a finger to put on some pants and get to work!@!!!
Whew…that felt good to get off my chest. 🙂
I appreciate the voices that have skin in the game, prophets of a sort, that have something legitimate to say, and are invested in solutions.
How are you perceiving the US election and such from your place overseas?
Hi John,
This weekend I was in Los Angeles for my mom’s 90th Birthday. She has lost her ability to speak and when she stops eating she will go into Hospice care. Sigh, that is where she is.
She is surrounded by loving, but non Christian children, grand children and great grand children.
Most will only grace a church for the funeral. The last two weddings were done by friends helping them remember the lines to the vows they had prewritten.
Fortunately, my mom is a catholic believer who in her later years attended protestant services in her retirement home.
I am praying that I will have time to speak about her hope she has in Christ at the funeral. A hope that most of her grandchildren don’t have.
Shalom.
Russell, firstly I am sorry about your mother. Secondly, that is a metaphor for what is at stake in Evangelicalism. It’s those that are non or nominal Christians that are watching the Church – how will it act?
I hope we give them something better than we’ve been giving them over the last many number of years, in Jesus name!
John,
Thanks for a great post.
So many themes are woven into your post but they all lead to what is needed. Repentance. Even as you referenced Carl Lentz, I thought of the powerful redeeming power of Christ. His kids were front row observers to his ministry and fame, but also to his downfall, repentance, and redemption. They, more than anyone else, knew the Carl on stage and the Carl at home. No doubt, it will be God’s incredible love and forgiveness for their Dad that will leave a mark on them for their entire lives.
Speaking of repentance….I was listening the John Mark Comer just the other week (cannot recall the podcast), but he mentioned that more than anything else, we need to make daily repentance a rhythm of life. I imagine one could say it would be advantageous to have a daily altar call. Perhaps that is another aspect that has been dismissed in our private lives to the point that we rationalize sin when it seems to serve us in some way.
I heard it said somewhere: “Sin small, repent small.” I don’t know where the quote originated but I repeated it and expounded upon it in a memoir of sorts that I wrote for my family…
“Sin small, repent small. Here’s what I mean by this…when you struggle in “small” areas – things that many would consider to be “no big deal” – please repent. Get it right. Don’t let it get bigger, because, it flat out WILL if left unchecked and unrepented. In looking back at my life, I wish I had dealt with the “small” aspects of sin, shame and stupidity before they grew much bigger…”
Daily repentence as a rhythm of life. Hmmm. That’s good. That’s important.
John, I read your excellent post right after I read Pam’s, which has me thinking (in part, because I think that Moore is pretty spot-on with his critique of evangelicalism in the U.S.)…How do we — and I would put Moore in the “we” category — keep from sliding into the sort of thing that Moore is concerned about and has so poignantly pointed out? And that is — developing a different version of the same thing – a politic of resentment or even megalothymia, where our take on culture is better than “those” people, over there, on “that” side of the isle. Even as I write that, I think to myself – that’s sounding like a postmodern argument to infinite and beyond.
As much as I resonated with Moore’s thesis, I am also curious about what Russ highlighted in his post — that Haidt (and C. Smith) might be concerned that Moore’s argument doesn’t take into account the psychology behind why people join religious groups in the first place. I would like to explore what Haidt says, as I have not yet read the Righteous Mind.
At any rate, my denomination doesn’t have alter calls. HA! But perhaps we SHOULD! Great post.
Oh, your reply really got me thinking about how we all too often slide into a “different version of the same thing.”
Draws me to Luke 18:11….”A Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the other people-robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and tax collectors. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
Right now, if I am super honest, I am looking judgementally at those on the “side” that I used to occupy…the side of ultra-do-or-die-republician-because-Jesus-was-a-republician-of-course. Now I shake my head at them with slight distain.
I don’t like that about me right now. I need to repent of that. Time to respond to my own altar call!