It is common in Evangelical and Pentecostal meetings. After some preaching, or some “testimony”, the person up the front, usually with a microphone, “invites” people who want or know they need Jesus, to “raise their hand”, and then to “come down the front”.
Once there, they are invited to “say the sinner’s prayer”, inviting Jesus into their heart, making Him Lord of their Life.
This is the “Born Again” moment for many people in fundamentalist churches.
They call themselves “Word Churches”, churches who base what they do upon the “inerrant Word of God”. They do some things well. They are BIG on Faith, BIG on the importance of what you say.
But the KEY MOMENT IN THEIR BORN AGAIN EXPERIENCE IS NOT IN THE BIBLE.
The sentiments are nice. But they are NOT in the Bible. They are NOT IN THE WORD OF GOD. The Sinner’s Prayer was “made up” in the American Bible Belt in the 20th Century. There is nothing in the New Testament that describes “inviting Jesus into your heart”.
It is a nice idea.
But it is a “TRADITION OF MEN”.
The “Sinner’s Prayer” is NOT in the Bible, not in any Bible that came from God.
Jesus told Nicodemus that humans had to be “born again”. JC said NOTHING about inviting Him into your heart during an “Altar Call” at the local Evangelical church meeting or during a “Crusade” or “Revival Meeting”.
If these really are “Word Churches”, then WHY, OH WHY, is the key moment in their “Salvation” NOT in the Word of God?