The altar call, and the rail people actually kneel at.
Nazarene churches are built with a rail across the front and it is used weekly, for conversion and for sanctification both. Seekers kneel and someone kneels with them; the meeting waits. It is the tradition's central act and its most exportable one.
The altar call is the Wesleyan-holiness tradition's inheritance from the camp meeting and the Nazarenes have kept it in weekly use when many revivalist bodies have not. The physical arrangement matters: a rail runs across the front, low enough to kneel at, and the invitation is given after the sermon at almost every service. People come for conversion, for sanctification, for rededication, for anything. Someone comes and kneels beside them. The tradition's associated institution is the camp meeting — a week or ten days of preaching in a tabernacle, historically at a permanent campground with cabins — and district camps remain a fixture. Where Nazarene work has grown fastest, in Africa and the Philippines and Central America, the camp meeting and the altar have travelled essentially unchanged.
The same ground, other faiths
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