c. 1996 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Promise Keepers, the evangelical organization that has filled stadiums this year with more than 1 million men seeking spiritual renewal, has long said its aim is to send men back to their churches, fired up for God.

But with local men’s ministries often stagnant or nonexistent, Promise Keepers wanted to make sure the conferences resulted in more than momentary warm fuzzies.

Now, the burgeoning Denver-based ministry has begun to form working relationships with Protestant denominations to help revive men’s ministries at the local church level.

Already, Promise Keepers has formed a partnership with the Assemblies of God, the second-largest Pentecostal group in the nation, and with the International Pentecostal Holiness Church. Earnest conversations have begun with at least four other denominations and other groups are in more tentative stages of discussion.”Promise Keepers is catalytic,”said Dale Schlafer, Promise Keepers’ vice president for revival and awakening.”The men get turned around, get turned on and then it’s the local church’s job and then the denomination’s job to marshal that.” Men’s ministries _ from weekend pancake breakfasts to monthly dinners with inspirational speakers _ existed decades before Promise Keepers was founded in 1990. But many that had grown stagnant have been revived recently, in some cases because of the influence of Promise Keepers, which conducted 22 stadium conferences in 1996.

Schlafer explained how the group is working with the Assemblies of God, which claims 2.3 million members and adherents in the United States.”We go in and train their leadership in the things that God’s helped us understand about men’s ministry, but then it all comes under their own theology and their own history, so that it’s an Assemblies of God production,”he said.”It’s not a Promise Keepers production.” Each denomination that forms a relationship will probably associate with the national men’s ministry in a different way.

The Assemblies of God has appointed a staff person to work as a liaison between the two organizations, which are jointly responsible for his salary.

In some cases, churches will purchase materials from Promise Keepers, such as the”Next Step Kit,”a multi-media package that guides men in starting a small-group ministry after attending a stadium event. In other cases, denominations create their own materials.

An official of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church, which has about 157,000 members in the United States and 1.5 million members worldwide, hopes working with Promise Keepers will help achieve a goal of having a men’s ministry in every church.”We’re a relatively small denomination,”said Jack Kelley, the denomination’s director of men’s ministries for the denomination.”We don’t have the resources. … By them offering other training that we’re able to get, we should see a sizable jump in the preparation of our men for ministry.” LifeBuilders, a new men’s ministry of the Church of God in Cleveland, Tenn., has put together a 150-page”resource action manual”to help men organize local church chapters, but its leaders recently visited Promise Keepers’ headquarters to receive advanced training.”Promise Keepers has so much to offer us by way of support and training and materials that we wish to align ourselves with them to help men to … be better husbands and fathers and churchmen,”said Leonard Albert, executive director of the Church of God’s lay ministries.

Albert, who also is chairman of the Churchmen Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals, said he is encouraging other denominations to consider working with Promise Keepers.”We have a profound respect for Promise Keepers,”Albert said.”We believe as they do that it is a sovereign work of God. We’re trying our best to foster a spirit of cooperation.” James Mathisen, a sociology professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, said Promise Keepers has created some ill will among denominational leaders with their efforts to break down the walls between church groups. Those initiatives have focused on bringing people from a variety of denominations together rather than on supporting the denominations.”I think they’re very wise to negotiate,”he said.”This would represent a major shift in their strategy.” Promise Keepers officials are talking with both evangelical and mainline Protestants, although theological differences are likely to impede formal partnerships with mainline groups.”It’s hard to put down something that’s reaching 1.1 million men,”said Doug Haugen, president of the North American Conference of Church Men’s Staffs, a consortium of 22 Protestant mainline and evangelical denominations.

Haugen’s coalition of denominational men’s staffs has invited Promise Keepers to work with them, but some individual groups may have trouble signing a working agreement.”I find that within the (ELCA) church, there’s such a broad range of thoughts and feelings and opinions about Promise Keepers _ right and wrong – that it would be very difficult to talk about any kind of a formal agreement at this time,”said Haugen, who also directs Lutheran Men in Mission, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).”We feel successful when we hear … men say I’ve been to Promise Keepers and I really enjoyed it … but now what I’m getting in my own church is adding to that.” Promise Keepers officials say they work to offset misconceptions that the national men’s organization is trying to become another denomination. They also say Promise Keepers’ stance on gender relations is often misunderstood.”We want to work through institutions and denominations that are already in existence and come alongside of them to assist them,”said Daniel Erickson, the acting director of Promise Keepers denominational relations department.”We don’t want to be in competition with them.” Schlafer said questions about Promise Keepers’ view of the role of women in the home is best answered by a first-hand experience at a stadium event. He cited the example of Iowa family counselor Gary Rosberg who washed his wife Barbara’s feet at the recent conference in Dallas to demonstrate how wives should be treated.”Suddenly the whole issue of headship takes on a whole different view,”said Schlafer, referring to the belief of some evangelicals that the man should be the head of the family.

But there are some theological issues that may make it tough to link arms with certain groups. Before a working agreement can be arranged, Promise Keepers and an affiliating denomination have to agree on the men’s ministry’s seven promises and its five-point statement of faith, which includes a belief that the Bible is”verbally inspired, authoritative, and without error in the original manuscripts.””It’s that statement on the inerrancy of Scripture which causes some to stress, but that’s one we just feel like you can’t budge off of,”Schlafer said.

Although mainline Protestant and Catholic men have attended Promise Keepers conferences, denominational officials cite theological constraints for closer institutional ties.”The fact that the statement of faith contains references to Scripture being `verbally inspired’ and to salvation `through faith alone’ could pose a problem for Catholic believers,”said a report on Promise Keepers issued in June by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Marriage and Family.

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Denominations that form partnerships with Promise Keepers hope to help men deepen relationships with their families and each other via support groups that meet at local churches. Eventually they may teach Sunday School or join with other men to pray for their pastor before church services.

Dan Bergstrom, executive director of the men’s ministry of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, says church groups for men often concentrate on practical projects and lack spiritual depth. As his organization finalizes a working agreement with Promise Keepers, he’s hoping things will improve.”Men’s ministries are doing projects, such as painting (church) camp buildings,”he said.”As for building relationships and accountability, I would say that we are lacking in that area.” The Rev. Ron Roberts, national coordinator of HonorBound: Men of Promise, the Assemblies of God’s new men’s ministry, agrees that men need to be involved in spiritual development as well as physical projects.”What we’ve missed is the discipling process where we develop and mature men in the development of their spiritual character,”he said.

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Schlafer said his organization’s new relationships with churches and denominations does not mean an end to stadium conferences. Eventually, he hopes the stadium events will be used more for evangelizing non-Christians than reviving the spirituality of men who already consider themselves Christians.

But regardless of the conferences’ purpose, officials of the churches building relationships with Promise Keepers say they expect to be better equipped to assist the men who attend.”Our main goal in working with Promise Keepers is taking from their toolbox things that are appropriate for our ministry,”said Bergstrom of Alliance Men Ministries.”Men’s ministries, I think, wonder what do we do from here after a Promise Keepers conference and this training helps us to say here’s where we go from here.”

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