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Altar Calls

Altar calls lets your team record spiritual decisions made during a service — water baptism, Holy Ghost infilling, rededications, and other altar responses. Every decision is tied to a person record so your pastoral team can follow up and track spiritual growth over time.

What you need​

  • Admin or Altar Worker role in Passport
  • At least one service set up in your church calendar (for service-linked entry)

Record a decision​

  1. Open Services → Altar calls and click Record decision.
  2. Complete the form:
    • Decision type — choose Water Baptism, Holy Ghost, Rededication, or Other
    • Person — search by name; if the person is not in your database, click Add new person and enter their first name (required), phone, and email.
    • Date — defaults to today; change it if recording after the fact
    • Altar worker — optionally select the staff member who prayed with this person (defaults to you)
    • Notes — any context your team should know
  3. Click Save decision.

If you added a new person, Passport creates their record and links the decision to it automatically.

You can also start from a service: on Services → Upcoming services or the Calendar, click Altar calls on the service. The log opens filtered to that service on that date, and Record decision links the decision to that service and fills in its date. Click Show all altar calls to clear the filter.

View the altar calls log​

Altar calls is the central record of every decision made at the altar.

  1. In Passport, open Services → Altar calls.
  2. Use the From and To date fields to set a date range.
  3. Optionally filter by decision type using the dropdown.
  4. Browse the paginated results. Each row shows the decision type, the person (their name opens their profile), the date, and the altar worker.

The top of the page shows summary tiles with counts by decision type for the selected period.

Report on decisions​

  1. Open Reports in the main navigation and go to What decisions were made?.
  2. Pick a period at the top of Reports: 30 days, 90 days or 12 months.
  3. Read the counts for each decision type and the month-by-month table.
  4. Click Export CSV to download the data for use in spreadsheets or other reports.

This section needs Plus with Service decisions turned on. See Reports.

Decision types​

TypeWhen to use
Water BaptismPerson was baptized by water during or in connection with a service
Holy GhostPerson received Holy Ghost infilling
RededicationPerson recommitted their faith after a period away
OtherAny other altar response that does not fit the above categories

Next steps​

  • Baptism Certificates — Generate and email a baptism certificate for someone who made a water baptism decision. See Baptism Certificates.
  • Pastoral Care — Assign follow-up care to a pastor or ministry team after a significant decision. See Pastoral Care.