Convert Counts: A Response to Michael @ Oak Leaf

Yesterday's post on all of the churches that conducted instant salvation counts of new converts was unfortunately very polemic. That's to be expected however, with the widespread popularity that this practice has found in America. I visited the blogs of several of the convert-counting pastors and reported back to you with the salvation statistics that they gave on the same day that these conversions were reported to have happened. One of these pastors dropped by to visit us, and defend his church's practices. Rather than simply posting his comment deep in the other thread, I thought I would give his remarks some extra attention on a separate page. So in this post, Michael from Oak Leaf Church joins us, and hopefully we can get him to stick around long enough to discuss the key issues at hand. Here's what he had to say on yesterday's post. Everyone, feel free to join in the discussion.

This is his comment in it's entirety, and without any modification to his text at all:

I'd like to go through the points that Michael makes, not necessarily to convince Michael since he and I have been discussing these things going on 2 years now, but for the sake of our readers which hopefully includes readers that might one day consider attending a church that has adopted this kind of thinking. It's no secret that I feel that what Michael is doing is wrong, harmful, and biblically reckless. But even so, I still believe these methods can be discussed in a charitable way. So here's my attempt at starting that process; I will be addressing Michael directly from here on:

how sad. instead of rejoicing over one that comes to salvation, you lament over some that might not have meant it.

When you say "instead of" the inference is that we are not rejoicing over anyone that may have come to salvation. Isn't this the kind of assumption of motives that 1Corinthians 4:5 warns against in judging the hidden things that are in someone else's heart? You really have no idea from anything we've written to suggest that we don't care for any that came to salvation.

It's inaccurate to simply say that we "lament over some that might not have meant it". Our post talked about the danger that is inherent in conveying to 60 people that they have just made a move that caused them to be born again and to put their selves on the path to heaven. The fact is, they might not be, perhaps even many of them might not be. As apologist Dr. James White once explained so well, it is a worse thing to have false conversions than less conversions.

Church history has some lessons for us about this as well. If you scroll down to the bottom half of this page you will find some discussion about an "over-evangelized" (yes there is such a thing) portion of New York state called "The Burnt Over District", where even to this day there are fewer conversions. That area was worked over by a man named Charles Finney who had some similarities with your methods Michael. It was later said of him:

During ten years, hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were annually reported to be converted on all hands; but now it is admitted, that real converts are comparatively few. It is declared, even by [Finney] himself, that "the great body of them are a disgrace to religion" [cited in Warfield, 2:23].

You go on to say:

yes...time will tell. yes...growth is required. yes...there were probably some among the 60 who will not bear fruit. that is sad, and it breaks my heart to see people fall away.

It's wonderful that you admit that among the 60 probably some were not really saved, but, why wasn't this conveyed to your audience? Wouldn't the responsible thing to do be to elaborate to those 60 people, the need to take up their cross, and count the costs, rather than sending them home with what amounts to an imaginary ticket to heaven? How many of the false-converts within that 60 will now feel like their ticket is punched, and will simply begin to live any way they want, with little regard for holiness? I assume your answer is going to be that you intend to disciple them, but how can you be sure you'll see all of those 60 again? Why not just be honest with everyone in your audience, about what it is they did when they prayed that prayer or signed that card (or signed whatever)? And why not also stress heavily that what they did was not what saved any of them; if they were saved - it wasn't their decision that did it, it was the Holy Spirit who made them born again and nothing they did caused that to happen? It's also worth noting that your partner-Pastor (Anthony) goes even a step further than you; he doesn't just talk about decisions - he actually gives the exact count of how many were saved. How does he know that each of those people were saved? That appears to conflict with what you just said.

but i will not focus just on the seed that falls on the rocky or thorny ground, i will rejoice on the seed that falls on the good ground.

So there's four soils talked about in the parable, each of which are prepared by God (not by our methods and techniques), and you feel that all 60 of these people fall under the one category of just the good soil?

of course people are not saved by signing their name on a cross, but it was an incredibly meaningful moment to many Christians. You do them a disservice with your comments.

I've known you for a number of years in an online sense, and I see how closely you follow the techniques and ideas of Granger Community Church. So when you mentioned that you had people come forward to sign a cross, it sounded a lot to me like Granger's previous antics of having their audience come forward and sign a large painting of Divinci's Last Supper. Afterwards Granger reported on their pastor-blogs how many hundreds (almost a thousand) people were saved, and when they indicated how they knew they were saved, they said it was because those people came forward with good intentions and signed the painting. So if you are saying that you did not do the same with your cross-signing idea (and remember I never said that you did, I just questioned whether it was so) then your cross signing idea doesn't pertain to our topic at hand. That's assuming that there was an explanation to people that what they are doing when they signed the cross had no baring on their salvation. So I fail to see how I did them any disservice by questioning what the meaning of the cross-signing was; that's perhaps somewhat over-reactive on your part.

So Michael, I'm not sure if you'll be back to comment again, but I encourage you to come clean with your salvation-counts, and stop misleading people into thinking that all it takes is a decision on their part and WHALLA! you're a Christian now. You will find this practice virtually nowhere in church history prior to 1840. Furthermore, what could possibly be the benefit in making such immediate and public salvation counts? Many onlookers even feel it gives the appearance of boasting and "look what MY ministry did". Or an expression of "look at the name I've made for myself" (Genesis 11:4). Whether any of that applies to you or not, I don't know.

As I did in yesterday's post, I would like to encourage anyone who is wrestling with these things to watch the two videos on this page. The theological term for the error that this post is dealing with is called Decisional Regeneration.