We all have a favorite manipulative story, and mine is that of the drawbridge operator and his son. The man sits in his little box and lifts the bridge when a boat comes by and lowers it for the passing trains.

One day after lifting the bridge for a boat, he goes to lower it again for a coming train and notices his son (his only son) playing in the gears. The son is too far away for the father to warn him, and the father must make the horrific choice: allow the unsuspecting passengers on the train to die, or kill his son. He chooses to kill his son so the people on the train will live. This is then compared to what God did in sending Jesus to die for us so we might live. We'll never know just how many thousands of people have made decisions for Christ as a result of hearing this heart-rending story.

No doubt God has used this story to bring people to the Kingdom. My problem is that it relies on an emotionally manipulative tug that doesn't quite mirror a biblical view of God or of the gospel. In essence, the listeners are drawn in by pity for this poor father who had to make this tragic choice on our behalf. Certainly, in both this story and the biblical one, both parents had sons who died so others might live; but in the biblical account, Jesus chooses to die; He isn't an unwilling victim. Likewise, God wasn't forced into the decision to offer a child against His will. Isaiah 53:10 says, "it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain." It was a purposeful act, not done out of desperation. God doesn't need our pity; God deserves our devotion.

Discipleship, Not Manipulation

So whether it's this story or the one where the father must allow his son's body to be drained of all its blood to fight a nationwide epidemic or any of the others out there, we must be careful how we use them to call students to faith. We're bound to get momentary, guilt-induced decisions that don't necessarily result in lifelong disciples. Some students will figure they might as well cover their bases and pray this prayer, asking themselves what harm it could do. The harm is contained in communicating to people that they're heaven-bound Christians when there's no evidence that this is the case.

John Wesley said that this is akin to sending people to hell with smiles on their faces. Certainly there's a place in each of our ministries for calling students to put their faith in Christ, but we must follow Jesus' example of a call to discipleship, not just an impulsive decision to pray a prayer. We're to make disciples, teaching them to obey Jesus—a crucial piece of the Great Commission that Dallas Willard has called the Great Omission.

We cannot call students to faith in Jesus without first encouraging them to count the cost, as Jesus did in Luke 14. Only a fool would start building a tower without determining whether it could be built to completion, Jesus warns. Likewise, it would be foolish to teach a student that he or she need only respond to an emotional plea and pray a simple prayer to be a Christian.