At the Altar

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Pictured above is an after-church gathering (around 1951 or 1952) on the steps of Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church in the Blue Ridge section of Greenville County, South Carolina. I was sick that day and missed being in the photo. My friend Don Hill and I are the same age. He is pictured on the front row near the center. He was about four years of age when this photo was made. My first-grade teacher, then known as "Miss Nell Thompson" is also shown in this photograph. (Left-click once on the photo to see it enlarged.) 

The church I first attended as a child had a banister-type, wooden altar rail that ran across the front of the sanctuary.

That red-carpeted church sanctuary had three aisles (one center aisle and two wall aisles) and two sections of pews. The pulpit stood on a raised platform behind the altar railing.

The folk in that rural Greenville County, South Carolina, body of believers called their group the Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church. The “church” was made up of people; the people met in a “church house,” a building that “housed” the church (the people). Those dear people seemed to go to the altar a lot after sermons were delivered.

The altar in our sanctuary seemed, to me, to be a very holy spot. People knelt there to “do business” with the Lord. Many who used the altar area prayed out loud, and the sounds of their corporate voices were beautiful in my ears.

Many altar-goers raised their hands in worship, and I often saw handkerchiefs in the palms of ladies who prayed at our altar. Those handkerchiefs absorbed tears that flowed.

Sometimes, when our pastor presented an “altar call” for anyone who had never accepted Christ, a solitary figure might walk to the front of our sanctuary and kneel at the altar. The pastor prayed for that man or woman. Several people gathered ’round to pray – sometimes with the “laying on of hands” – for each penitent person.

As a child, I perceived that the altar was a good place for people to lay down burdens and release tears, as their hearts cried out to God.

I’ve heard some people say altars in churches are outdated and that Christ’s work – his being laid “on the altar of sacrifice” (the cross) – took away the need for an altar. Many churches have prayer areas between pulpits and pews or sanctuary seating, but they don’t have “altars with railings” on which one can lay his arms, cradle his head, pray and let tears fall.

  

I’ve seen many people who seemed to “meet God” at altars. And I recall good times I spent on my knees at altars. I still have a fondness for altars.