Raise YOUR Hand!

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Dr. Huk-N-Duck

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I want to get some feedback on this, especially since this has always somewhat annoyed me. While attending a church service today, the pastor asked for a raise of hands concerning whether God spoke to those of us in attendance concerning today’s topic. I have to say, God did speak to me, but I didn’t feel the need to raise my hand, especially since I was still silently praying. What happened next is what really ticked me off. While we were supposed to still have our heads bowed/eyes closed (with hands in the air) he then said for everyone to continue raising their hands and everyone in the congregation to open their eyes and look around, thus revealing who did and didn’t have their hands up. Is this crossing a line on the part of the pastor? It felt almost like an invasion of privacy to me. Maybe I’m just being petty, but is there anything in the Scriptures that instructs a practice of raising hands in the first place? (Note: I understand someone raising their hand for needing help with a salvation prayer.)
 
Baptist City Holdout said:
Bait and switch; false pretenses; manipulation.
Yes, the line was crossed.
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I’m glad someone else feels this way and it’s not just me. In all fairness, I should say it was actually the younger assistant pastor who was preaching this sermon and not the senior pastor, and I can’t recall the senior pastor pulling that stunt before. I have experienced this before in Baptist church services, but it’s been a long time.
Is the public raising of hands pretty much a Baptist thing? I don’t have a ton of non-Baptist experience, but I have visited other denominations and don’t recall this custom. Until yesterday, I never really thought about whether there’s scriptural precedent for this type of behavior. I do know that I won’t just raise my hand to appease a speaker/preacher, and that’s what it’s always felt like to me. It feels like the raising of hands isn’t really meant for God, it’s just meant to give the speaker a little ego boost of confidence that he did a good job delivering the message. I also feel like I’ll never trust that assistant pastor again when he gets to the invitation portion of the sermon.
 
Seems like he was stroking his ego a bit, and when having others look around, that seems like a bit of manipulation - "hey look at all these people with hands raised that heard God speak to them thru my message. What's wrong with you that didn't raise your hand?"
 
Sounds like this preacher is a control freak and self-deluded. Maybe he needs to find another line of work.
 
I take it from all your comments that there is absolutely no biblical precedent for the raising of hands during the invitation. Since I haven’t really seen this in other denominations, I’m assuming this is an IFB cultural thing.
 
Huk said:
I take it from all your comments that there is absolutely no biblical precedent for the raising of hands during the invitation. Since I haven’t really seen this in other denominations, I’m assuming this is an IFB cultural thing.
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raising of hands has never happened in a church service i attended.... ....and i would never be comfortable in a church service where it did.... .. but the thing this pastor did is even worse than that... - first implying there were would be a measure of privacy in the raising of hands thing..... (having everyone close their eyes).... and then betraying those who trusted him by having everyone open their eyes and look around.. - and is in my mind, unforgivable..... ..i would never return to a church where a pastor did something like that.....

betrayal of trust.... no matter how small the person committing it thinks the incident might be.... is never a small thing.... and the damage it does is never insignificant.. ..when a person of authority does it the damage it does is multiplied..... .... this pastor just showed his congregation that he can;t be trusted..... ....in my opinion he should be avoided like the plague.... .
 
i might add though... the pastor of the church i used to attend, that was on the waterfront and had big windows overlooking the ocean.. use to have everyone bow heads and close their eyes for prayer all the time.... .. to his credit he followed suit and closed his eyes as well..... but when the humpback whales were in hawaiian waters i would sometimes be looking out those windows instead of closing my eyes during prayers.... .. and on one such occasion i saw a whale breach just outside the surf break... it was so close you could clearly see the barnacles on it;s head.... ...i almost said something out loud but quickly realized not only should i keep quiet at that moment... . but i also couldn;t tell anybody about it later......

i did end up telling people about it though..... i couldn;t keep quiet about it.... not sure if they thought less of me for looking out the window or not..... ... but i know they would have thought less of me if people had been asked to raise their hands as either a confession or denial at that moment..... .... but then i would have missed both that and the whale breaching.... because i would not have been in there in the first place....
 
aleshanee said:
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raising of hands has never happened in a church service i attended.... ....and i would never be comfortable in a church service where it did.... .. but the thing this pastor did is even worse than that... - first implying there were would be a measure of privacy in the raising of hands thing..... (having everyone close their eyes).... and then betraying those who trusted him by having everyone open their eyes and look around.. - and is in my mind, unforgivable..... ..i would never return to a church where a pastor did something like that.....

betrayal of trust.... no matter how small the person committing it thinks the incident might be.... is never a small thing.... and the damage it does is never insignificant.. ..when a person of authority does it the damage it does is multiplied..... .... this pastor just showed his congregation that he can;t be trusted..... ....in my opinion he should be avoided like the plague.... .
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I feel very similarly, but it was the assistant pastor speaking not the head pastor. He’s a young guy not long out of Bible college, so I think he was trying to impress. I have never witnessed the senior pastor do it, so I have mixed feelings.
 
aleshanee said:
i might add though... the pastor of the church i used to attend, that was on the waterfront and had big windows overlooking the ocean.. use to have everyone bow heads and close their eyes for prayer all the time.... .. to his credit he followed suit and closed his eyes as well..... but when the humpback whales were in hawaiian waters i would sometimes be looking out those windows instead of closing my eyes during prayers.... .. and on one such occasion i saw a whale breach just outside the surf break... it was so close you could clearly see the barnacles on it;s head.... ...i almost said something out loud but quickly realized not only should i keep quiet at that moment... . but i also couldn;t tell anybody about it later......

i did end up telling people about it though..... i couldn;t keep quiet about it.... not sure if they thought less of me for looking out the window or not..... ... but i know they would have thought less of me if people had been asked to raise their hands as either a confession or denial at that moment..... .... but then i would have missed both that and the whale breaching.... because i would not have been in there in the first place....
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That’s pretty cool. Not many of us have seen stuff like that (except on TV).
 
Huk said:
I take it from all your comments that there is absolutely no biblical precedent for the raising of hands during the invitation. Since I haven’t really seen this in other denominations, I’m assuming this is an IFB cultural thing.
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It was popular in more mainstream Evangelical culture, too, though I haven't seen that kind of altar call in many years. Makes me wonder if it occurred to more thoughtful evangelists that they were implying Jesus was embarrassing.

At my church, if there is an explicit altar call, it tends to be an invitation to speak to one of the pastors or elders at the end of the service. (They might buy you a coffee, too.) A bit like Finney's "anxious bench," perhaps, but at least there's no emotional manipulation like repeating "Just as I Am" until enough hands are raised.
 
Ransom said:
It was popular in more mainstream Evangelical culture, too, though I haven't seen that kind of altar call in many years. Makes me wonder if it occurred to more thoughtful evangelists that they were implying Jesus was embarrassing.

At my church, if there is an explicit altar call, it tends to be an invitation to speak to one of the pastors or elders at the end of the service. (They might buy you a coffee, too.) A bit like Finney's "anxious bench," perhaps, but at least there's no emotional manipulation like repeating "Just as I Am" until enough hands are raised.
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The “anxious bench”…that’s awesome, lol! I had never heard of that and was just reading about it after doing a Google search. 😆
 
Huk said:
I want to get some feedback on this, especially since this has always somewhat annoyed me. While attending a church service today, the pastor asked for a raise of hands concerning whether God spoke to those of us in attendance concerning today’s topic. I have to say, God did speak to me, but I didn’t feel the need to raise my hand, especially since I was still silently praying. What happened next is what really ticked me off. While we were supposed to still have our heads bowed/eyes closed (with hands in the air) he then said for everyone to continue raising their hands and everyone in the congregation to open their eyes and look around, thus revealing who did and didn’t have their hands up. Is this crossing a line on the part of the pastor? It felt almost like an invasion of privacy to me. Maybe I’m just being petty, but is there anything in the Scriptures that instructs a practice of raising hands in the first place? (Note: I understand someone raising their hand for needing help with a salvation prayer.)
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Does your church live stream the service? If so, do they continue the stream during the invitation? If they do, and they show a wide enough shot to show those who might respond, the world was watching which I personally find very offensive and invasive.
On our planet, we end the stream at the prayer before the invitation starts.
But to your point, men that do this type of thing are seeking to be recognized for "look around and see the power that God has given me" which is totally carnal.
 
IFB X-Files said:
Does your church live stream the service? If so, do they continue the stream during the invitation? If they do, and they show a wide enough shot to show those who might respond, the world was watching which I personally find very offensive and invasive.
On our planet, we end the stream at the prayer before the invitation starts.
But to your point, men that do this type of thing are seeking to be recognized for "look around and see the power that God has given me" which is totally carnal.
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They do live stream the service but they only show the person preaching, not the audience.
 
Even being raised in this kind of an atmosphere, I never participated. It was none of their business. I knew that even as a child.
 
Huk said:
I’m glad someone else feels this way and it’s not just me. In all fairness, I should say it was actually the younger assistant pastor who was preaching this sermon and not the senior pastor, and I can’t recall the senior pastor pulling that stunt before. I have experienced this before in Baptist church services, but it’s been a long time.
Is the public raising of hands pretty much a Baptist thing? I don’t have a ton of non-Baptist experience, but I have visited other denominations and don’t recall this custom. Until yesterday, I never really thought about whether there’s scriptural precedent for this type of behavior. I do know that I won’t just raise my hand to appease a speaker/preacher, and that’s what it’s always felt like to me. It feels like the raising of hands isn’t really meant for God, it’s just meant to give the speaker a little ego boost of confidence that he did a good job delivering the message. I also feel like I’ll never trust that assistant pastor again when he gets to the invitation portion of the sermon.
Click to expand...
In all my years in Baptist churches, the only time I've seen such a thing was during invitations. Not "raise your hand if you found my sermon convicting". And never an "open your eyes and see how many hands are raised".
 
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